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How File Search Works

Estimated Time: 4 minutes

File Search, also known as Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), enables your AI agents to find and reference information from uploaded documents. This allows your agents to provide accurate, context-specific answers based on your own content.

How File Search Works

  1. Document Processing - Your files are broken into smaller chunks and converted to vector embeddings
  2. Vector Storage - These embeddings are stored in a searchable vector database
  3. Semantic Search - When users ask questions, the system finds relevant chunks using semantic similarity
  4. Response Generation - The AI incorporates the retrieved information into its response

Key Concepts

Chunk size

Documents are split into smaller pieces (chunks) to improve search relevance.

Chunk Size Considerations:

  • Smaller chunks (100-400 tokens) - More precise, specific information
  • Larger chunks (400-800 tokens) - Better context and relationships

Defaults to 100

Chunk Overlap

Overlapping text between chunks ensures important context isn't lost at chunk boundaries.

Defaults to 20

Max chunks per answer

Adjust how many chunks to use per answer.

Defaults to 3