diagnose-retrieval

name	diagnose-retrieval
description	Separate retrieval failure from generation failure by measuring recall@k before touching the model. Reach for this first on wrong answers.

Skill: Diagnose retrieval

If the right passage isn't retrieved, no prompt or bigger model recovers it (§3 #1).

Step 1 — Measure recall@k

Is the relevant passage in the top-k? via ai_rag_engineering_calc.py retrieval-eval (§3 #1).

Step 2 — Split the failure mode

Low recall = retrieval bug; high recall + wrong answer = generation/grounding bug (§3 #1 #7).

Step 3 — Check hybrid

Try BM25 + vector fusion on the failing queries, especially keyword-heavy ones (§3 #6).

Step 4 — Fix the binding stage first

Retrieval before generation — don't swap the model on a retrieval bug (§3 #1).

Output

A failure-mode split (retrieval vs generation) with the first fix named. Traverse Tree 2 in the decision-trees file.