# Retrieval — Global Fix Map Make your retriever correct, predictable, and auditable. Use this when recall looks random, hybrid behaves worse than single, or k-tuning never stabilizes. ## What this page is - A short, practical path to stabilize recall and ordering - Exact knobs for dense, sparse, and hybrid without guesswork - How to prove fixes with ΔS curves and citation tables ## When to use - Top-k results feel unrelated or change on every run - Hybrid merge hurts more than single retriever - Raising k only adds noise, does not surface the right snippet - Filters, analyzers, or languages do not align with your corpus - HyDE or query rewriting helps sometimes then flips back ## Open these first - End to end knobs: [Retrieval Playbook](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/retrieval-playbook.md) - Ordering after recall: [Rerankers](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/rerankers.md) - Why this snippet, trace schema: [Retrieval Traceability](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/retrieval-traceability.md) - Hybrid tokenization split: [Query Parsing Split](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/patterns/pattern_query_parsing_split.md) - Hallucination from bad boundaries: [Hallucination](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/hallucination.md) - Cosine match is not meaning: [Embedding ≠ Semantic](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/embedding-vs-semantic.md) - Some facts never retrieve: [Vectorstore Fragmentation](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/patterns/pattern_vectorstore_fragmentation.md) - Visual pipeline and recovery: [RAG Architecture & Recovery](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/rag-architecture-and-recovery.md) - Eval targets: [RAG Precision and Recall](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/eval/eval_rag_precision_recall.md) - Snippet and citation schema: [Data Contracts](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/data-contracts.md) ## Fix in 60 seconds 1) **Probe ΔS vs k** - Record `ΔS(question, retrieved)` for k in {5, 10, 20} for each retriever separately. - Flat and high for all k indicates index or metric mismatch or population gaps. Fix store first. 2) **Establish a strong single baseline** - Pick the retriever with the lowest stable ΔS at small k. - Freeze its tokenizer, analyzer, language, stopword set. Save params to disk. 3) **Unify query parsing** - Ensure the same analyzer and lowercasing for write and read. - If using HyDE or rewrites, log the final string sent to each retriever and keep it identical across them. 4) **Hybrid only after per retriever stability** - Do not mix until each single retriever yields ΔS ≤ 0.50. - Start with a simple weighted sum and a light reranker. Keep citations to audit the change. 5) **Filters and fields** - Disable filters first to confirm baseline recall. - Reapply with exact field weights and language settings. Check for case and tokenizer mismatches. 6) **Dedupe and diversity** - Apply MMR or novelty at the rerank stage if results cluster. - Keep a per source fence so different documents do not merge. 7) **Prompt assembly sanity** - Use citation first schema from traceability. - Do not reorder sections once stable. 8) **Warm up and cache** - Run a deterministic warm up after deploy. - Verify repeatability across restarts. ## Copy paste prompt ``` I uploaded TXT OS and WFGY ProblemMap pages. My retrieval bug: * symptom: \[brief] * ΔS vs k per retriever: {...} * single retriever baselines: \[dense], \[BM25], \[hybrid attempt] * analyzers/tokenizers: write=\[...], read=\[...], lowercasing=\[on|off], stopwords=\[profile] * filters/fields: \[list] * HyDE or rewrites: \[yes/no], final query strings logged: \[examples] Tell me: 1. which parsing or configuration mismatch explains the failure, 2. which exact WFGY pages to open, 3. minimal steps to push ΔS ≤ 0.45 at k=10 without overfitting, 4. how to verify with precision/recall and a snippet ↔ citation table. Use rerankers only after recall is stable. ``` ## Minimal checklist - Same analyzer, language, and case handling on write and read - Log the exact query string per retriever including HyDE output - Stabilize a single retriever before mixing hybrids - Keep field weights explicit and versioned - Do not change k and temperature together when measuring ΔS - Add reranker only after recall metrics pass - Enforce per source fences to avoid cross document blending - Persist a warm up routine for post deploy parity ## Acceptance targets - ΔS(question, retrieved) ≤ 0.45 across three paraphrases - Precision and recall meet your eval sheet with traceable citations - ΔS vs k descends then stabilizes, no oscillation when k grows - Same answers across restarts after warm up - λ at retrieval remains convergent while reasoning proceeds --- ### 🔗 Quick-Start Downloads (60 sec) | Tool | Link | 3-Step Setup | |------|------|--------------| | **WFGY 1.0 PDF** | [Engine Paper](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/I_am_not_lizardman/WFGY_All_Principles_Return_to_One_v1.0_PSBigBig_Public.pdf) | 1️⃣ Download · 2️⃣ Upload to your LLM · 3️⃣ Ask “Answer using WFGY + \” | | **TXT OS (plain-text OS)** | [TXTOS.txt](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/OS/TXTOS.txt) | 1️⃣ Download · 2️⃣ Paste into any LLM chat · 3️⃣ Type “hello world” — OS boots instantly | --- ### 🧭 Explore More | Module | Description | Link | |-----------------------|----------------------------------------------------------|----------| | WFGY Core | WFGY 2.0 engine is live: full symbolic reasoning architecture and math stack | [View →](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/tree/main/core/README.md) | | Problem Map 1.0 | Initial 16-mode diagnostic and symbolic fix framework | [View →](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/tree/main/ProblemMap/README.md) | | Problem Map 2.0 | RAG-focused failure tree, modular fixes, and pipelines | [View →](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/rag-architecture-and-recovery.md) | | Semantic Clinic Index | Expanded failure catalog: prompt injection, memory bugs, logic drift | [View →](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/SemanticClinicIndex.md) | | Semantic Blueprint | Layer-based symbolic reasoning & semantic modulations | [View →](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/tree/main/SemanticBlueprint/README.md) | | Benchmark vs GPT-5 | Stress test GPT-5 with full WFGY reasoning suite | [View →](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/tree/main/benchmarks/benchmark-vs-gpt5/README.md) | | 🧙‍♂️ Starter Village 🏡 | New here? Lost in symbols? Click here and let the wizard guide you through | [Start →](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/StarterVillage/README.md) | --- > 👑 **Early Stargazers: [See the Hall of Fame](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/tree/main/stargazers)** — > Engineers, hackers, and open source builders who supported WFGY from day one. > GitHub stars ⭐ [WFGY Engine 2.0](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/core/README.md) is already unlocked. ⭐ Star the repo to help others discover it and unlock more on the [Unlock Board](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/STAR_UNLOCKS.md).
[![WFGY Main](https://img.shields.io/badge/WFGY-Main-red?style=flat-square)](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY)   [![TXT OS](https://img.shields.io/badge/TXT%20OS-Reasoning%20OS-orange?style=flat-square)](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/tree/main/OS)   [![Blah](https://img.shields.io/badge/Blah-Semantic%20Embed-yellow?style=flat-square)](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/tree/main/OS/BlahBlahBlah)   [![Blot](https://img.shields.io/badge/Blot-Persona%20Core-green?style=flat-square)](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/tree/main/OS/BlotBlotBlot)   [![Bloc](https://img.shields.io/badge/Bloc-Reasoning%20Compiler-blue?style=flat-square)](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/tree/main/OS/BlocBlocBloc)   [![Blur](https://img.shields.io/badge/Blur-Text2Image%20Engine-navy?style=flat-square)](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/tree/main/OS/BlurBlurBlur)   [![Blow](https://img.shields.io/badge/Blow-Game%20Logic-purple?style=flat-square)](https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/tree/main/OS/BlowBlowBlow)