| name | weknora-rag-search |
| description | Use when retrieving from or asking questions against a WeKnora knowledge base via the `weknora` CLI — and especially when unsure whether to use `chat`, `session ask`, or `search chunks` for a given goal. |
| metadata | {"tested_against":"v0.10"} |
WeKnora — retrieval & RAG queries
REQUIRED BACKGROUND: read the weknora-shared skill first (auth, --kb
resolution, the JSON envelope, exit codes, streaming/NDJSON output).
WeKnora gives you several ways to "ask about a knowledge base." Picking the wrong
one wastes turns or returns the wrong shape. Use the decision table.
Pick the command by your goal
| Your goal | Command | LLM synthesis? | Returns |
|---|
| Natural-language answer grounded in a KB | chat "<q>" --kb <kb> | yes | bounded answer events; --reference adds citations; --verbose adds execution detail |
| Answer via a custom agent (its own KB scope, tools, web search) | session ask --agent <id> "<q>" | yes (+ tools) | bounded answer events; --reference adds citations; --verbose adds execution detail |
| Raw context chunks to reason over yourself (no answer) | search chunks "<q>" --kb <kb> | no | ranked chunk list |
| Which documents match a keyword (title/filename) | search docs "<q>" --kb <kb> | no | document list |
| Find a knowledge base by name | search kb "<q>" | no | KB list |
| Find a past session by title | search sessions "<q>" | no | session list |
The three decisions that matter
- Answer vs raw context. Want a written answer →
chat / session ask.
Want chunks to feed into your own reasoning (e.g. you'll synthesize across
sources) → search chunks. Don't call chat just to read source text.
chat vs session ask. chat = plain KB RAG Q&A. session ask --agent <id> = invoke a configured custom agent (it may scope its own KBs, call
tools, do web search). If the user set up an agent for this, prefer it
(weknora agent list to find ids); otherwise chat.- One-shot vs multi-turn. Both
chat and session ask return a
data.session_id in default JSON output. Pass --session <id> on the next
call to continue the conversation. In NDJSON mode, read it from init.
Safety / Gotchas
chat, search chunks, search docs need a KB: pass --kb <id-or-name>, or
set WEKNORA_KB_ID, or weknora link the directory (resolved in that order).
If none resolves it's exit 1 (local.kb_id_required); a bad name is exit 1
(local.kb_not_found). Resolve names with weknora kb list / search kb.
(search kb / search sessions are tenant-wide and take no --kb.)chat / session ask return one buffered JSON envelope with answer
events by default. Add --reference for indexed citations and --verbose
for execution detail; use --format ndjson for raw events or --format text for the live human-readable projection.- A stalled stream is not stopped by Ctrl-C (that just drops your local
connection; the server keeps generating + billing). Stop it server-side:
weknora session stop <session-id> --message <message-id> (session_id from
data.session_id, or from init under --format ndjson).
Re-attach to a stream with weknora session resume <session-id> --message <message-id>.
search chunks --limit defaults to 8 (tuned for an LLM context window);
the search docs/kb/sessions lists default to 30. Tune retrieval with
--vector-threshold / --keyword-threshold, or --no-vector/--no-keyword
to disable a channel. Details: references/search-chunks.md.
Quick examples
weknora search chunks "retry backoff policy" --kb engineering --limit 12
weknora chat "How do we handle retries?" --kb engineering --format text
weknora chat "And the max attempts?" --kb engineering --session sess_abc
weknora session ask --agent ag_123 "Summarize this quarter's incidents"
