Implementation Milestones
Build incrementally: parse and chunk a small corpus; implement filtered retrieval; add hybrid search and ranking experiments; add grounded generation and citation validation; then security, evaluation, observability, and deployment. Keep a simple baseline and change one major component at a time. Mock provider calls in unit tests and reserve live calls for integration/evaluation.
Implementation example
M1 parse + chunk tests
M2 index + filtered retrieval
M3 hybrid search + ranking
M4 grounded answers + citations
M5 security + evaluation + traces
M6 deploy + load test + rollback drill💡 Incremental delivery localizes defects and makes quality improvements measurable.
Key Takeaways
- Inspect the relevant pipeline stage instead of guessing.
- Preserve source provenance, versions, and access scope.
- Measure quality on representative queries.
Knowledge Check
Why keep a simple baseline?