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At the end of this page, you have a tested retriever on your knowledge base, promoted as the live default.

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Before you start

Before you start, sign in to the dashboard and select the organization you want to work in.
  • You need a role that can manage resources to add, edit, or index retrievers.
  • You need a knowledge base with at least one processed source. See Create a knowledge base.

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Configure and test

1

Open your knowledge base and select the Retriever tab

The tab lists existing retrievers and marks the live default Default.
2

Select Add retriever and pick a preset

Select Add on Vector search for most agents. Select Customize on Custom retriever for advanced options.
3

Select + Index on the new card

A toast confirms Indexing started. Wait for the progress bar to finish.
4

Open the Actions menu and select Test retriever

Enter a question an end user would ask, then select Search.
5

Review the Top results

Check that the top chunks contain the answer. Try several real questions.
6

Select Make default from the Actions menu

A toast confirms Set as default retriever. The card now shows the Default badge.

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The Test retriever dialog

The dialog is titled Test retriever and searches only the retriever you opened it from. Type a question into the Enter a question… field and press Enter or select Search. Results appear under a Top results header. Each chunk shows its source document title, the rendered content, a rank marker such as #1, and a Score badge. For what the score means, see Retrievers explained. A line above the results tells you when the answering index was built. If the retriever needs a reindex, the line notes that later changes are not in the index yet and offers Reindex. Results clear on their own when the index changes.

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Verify

Run a test query against the promoted retriever. The Top results show the chunks your agent receives when it searches this knowledge base. The card carries the Default badge and no status badge.

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Reference

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The Retriever tab

Open a knowledge base and select the Retriever tab. The retriever marked Default answers live for your agent. A guide strip below the tab bar tracks three steps: Add a retriever, Add test questions, and Run experiments.

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The Add a retriever picker

Add retriever opens a dialog titled Add a retriever. An info strip recommends starting with Vector Search. Four cards are available:
The Add a retriever dialog with the four cards and their strategy badges
Each strategy badge carries a tooltip explaining the search style. An Add button on a preset card creates the retriever at once. The button reads Added and is disabled when a retriever with that strategy already exists. Done closes the dialog. If the configuration already exists, no new retriever is created, and a toast names the existing one.

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The Build from scratch dialog

The dialog holds a Name field of up to 40 characters, then two sections. An info icon beside most fields explains what it controls. For a new retriever, the Name field fills itself from the Search strategy and the Embedding model, for example Vector · OpenAI · 3-small. The strategy shows as Vector, Hybrid, or Keyword, and the model drops its (default) suffix. The name follows those fields until you type your own name, which then stays. If the name is already used on this knowledge base, a suffix such as (2) is added. If you clear the field, the retriever gets the generated name.
The Build from scratch dialog with Name filled in as Vector · OpenAI · 3-small, above the Index, Chunk size, Embedding model, Query, Search, and Refinement fields
Under the Parent-child index, the chunk fields read Child chunk size and Child overlap. An Advanced chunking (parent size/overlap) section then holds Parent chunk size and Parent overlap. When Refinement is Re-rank top results, the first count field reads Passages to re-rank. A second field, Results to retrieve, sets how many re-ranked passages the agent gets. Number fields accept whole numbers only. A value out of range shows its allowed range under the field, and Add stays disabled until you fix it.

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The retriever card

Each retriever renders as a card with its name, a summary line, and a footer. While a build runs, the card shows Indexing or Replacing with a percentage and a progress bar. A failed build shows a red Indexing failed alert with a Details popover and a Retry button. When single documents fail to index, an amber alert reads Repairing N documents. They are temporarily unavailable. Details lists each document and its retry attempts. Tars retries on its own, and Retry now schedules another attempt at once. See Manage documents for the reindex flow.

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The card Actions menu

The menu on a card offers: When a change in Edit config requires a rebuild, the footer warns that saving reindexes the retriever. A retriever with settings the form cannot show can only be renamed there.