Mid-level interview question
Which changes force you to re-index, and which don't?
Model answer
The index belongs to the retriever. Re-index when the chunking, the embedding model, or the tokenizer you chunk by changes.
Swapping the generator doesn't require it: it reads whatever text retrieval hands it.
Practise the rest
6 RAG basics questions, 492 in all, each with a model answer. Free.
More RAG basics interview questions
- What is retrieval-augmented generation?
- Your knowledge base is 150,000 tokens. Do you need RAG?
- Retrieval finds the right passage 70% of the time. Is a better generator or better retrieval worth more?
- How would you decide where a question should be answered from in a RAG system?
- When is RAG the wrong tool?