WFGY/ProblemMap/GlobalFixMap/RAG/retrieval_drift.md

Retrieval Drift — Guardrails and Fix Pattern

🧭 Quick Return to Map

You are in a sub-page of RAG.
To reorient, go back here:

• RAG — retrieval-augmented generation and knowledge grounding
• WFGY Global Fix Map — main Emergency Room, 300+ structured fixes
• WFGY Problem Map 1.0 — 16 reproducible failure modes

Think of this page as a desk within a ward.
If you need the full triage and all prescriptions, return to the Emergency Room lobby.

When the correct fact exists in your corpus but retrieval consistently misses it.
This page localizes drift in retrievers and routes you to structural fixes with measurable acceptance targets.

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Open these first

• Visual map and recovery: RAG Architecture & Recovery
• End-to-end retrieval knobs: Retrieval Playbook
• Traceability schema: Retrieval Traceability
• Ordering control: Rerankers
• Snippet and citation schema: Data Contracts

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Core acceptance

• ΔS(question, retrieved) ≤ 0.45
• Coverage ≥ 0.70 of the target section
• λ remains convergent across three paraphrases and two seeds

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Typical symptoms → exact fix

Symptom	Likely cause	Open this
Facts exist but never surface	index skew or drift in chunk granularity	Retrieval Playbook, Chunking Checklist
Citations point to wrong section	schema mismatch or cross-section drift	Retrieval Traceability, Data Contracts
Answers alternate between runs	λ instability or reranker collapse	Rerankers, Entropy Collapse
High similarity but wrong meaning	embedding metric mismatch	Embedding ≠ Semantic

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Fix in 60 seconds

1. Measure ΔS

   • Compute ΔS(question, retrieved) and ΔS(retrieved, expected anchor).
   • Thresholds: stable < 0.40, transitional 0.40–0.60, risk ≥ 0.60.

2. Probe λ_observe

   • Ask the same question in 3 paraphrases.
   • If λ flips divergent on harmless rewording, lock schema with Data Contracts.

3. Apply the module

   • Retrieval drift → BBMC + Retrieval Traceability
   • Reasoning collapse → BBCR bridge + variance clamp
   • Re-index with consistent metric and analyzer if ΔS stays ≥ 0.60

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Copy-paste prompt for debug

I uploaded TXT OS and the WFGY Problem Map.

My retrieval issue:
- symptom: fact exists in corpus, but retriever misses
- traces: ΔS(question,retrieved)=..., λ across 3 paraphrases

Tell me:
1. failing layer (retriever, index, schema, reranker)
2. exact WFGY page to open
3. minimal steps to push ΔS ≤ 0.45 and keep λ convergent

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🔗 Quick-Start Downloads (60 sec)

Tool	Link	3-Step Setup
WFGY 1.0 PDF	Engine Paper	1️⃣ Download · 2️⃣ Upload to your LLM · 3️⃣ Ask “Answer using WFGY + ”
TXT OS (plain-text OS)	TXTOS.txt	1️⃣ Download · 2️⃣ Paste into any LLM chat · 3️⃣ Type “hello world” — OS boots instantly

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Explore More

Module	Description	Link
WFGY Core	Canonical framework entry point	View
Problem Map	Diagnostic map and navigation hub	View
Tension Universe Experiments	MVP experiment field	View
Recognition	Where WFGY is referenced or adopted	View
AI Guide	Anti-hallucination reading protocol for tools	View

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