Phase 1: Document Ingestion - The Hidden Complexity Before Embeddings

Short summary

Production RAG systems require 15 pre-processing steps before embeddings: file hashing (content-based, not filename), parsing, cleaning, chunking with overlap, deduplication, and versioning—not just text extraction. Skipping any step causes silent failures and wrong answers that go undetected, degrading system reliability. Proper hashing detects duplicates even when filenames change, deduplication prevents redundant processing, and versioning handles policy updates, collectively reducing costs and improving accuracy.

• •15 pre-processing steps required before embeddings, from file hashing to versioning
• •Content-based hashing detects duplicates even when filenames are reused
• •Production systems fail silently without these steps—answers are wrong but unreported

Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.