Retriever

Definitions

1. The component in a search or RAG system that fetches candidate information relevant to a query. Retrievers may use embeddings, keywords, hybrid search, or learned ranking approaches.

   In plain English: The component that fetches relevant documents or chunks.

   Example: "The retriever pulled the top candidate policy sections before a reranker narrowed them down for final prompt assembly."

Related Terms

• AI Index
• AI Search
• Context Stuffing
• RAG Retriever
• Relevance Score
• Retrieval Model
• Retrieval Pipeline
• Retrieval Quality