Claude 3.7 Sonnet and Claude Code

Re:Claude 3.7 Sonnet and Claude Code by simonw on Tuesday February 25, 2025 @02:12AM (#43169099)

Yes, I think that's RAG. It's Retrieval Augmented Generation - you're retrieving content to augment the generation.

Who cares if you used vector search for the retrieval?

The best vector retrieval implementations are already switching to a hybrid between vector and FTS, because it turns out BM25 etc is still a better algorithm for a lot of use-cases.

"Agentic search" makes much less sense to me because the term "agentic" is so incredibly vague.

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Re:Claude 3.7 Sonnet and Claude Code by regularfry on Tuesday February 25, 2025 @03:45AM (#43169580)

I think it depends who "you" is. In classic RAG the search mechanism is preordained, the search is done up front and the results handed to the model pre-baked. I'd interpret "agentic search" as anything where the model has potentially a collection of search tools that it can decide how to use best for a given query, so the search algorithm, the query, and the number of searches are all under its own control.

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Re:Claude 3.7 Sonnet and Claude Code by jcheng on Tuesday February 25, 2025 @11:40AM (#43174140)

Exactly. Was the extra information pushed to the model as part of the query? It’s RAG. Did the model pull the extra information in via a tool call? Agentic search.

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Re:Claude 3.7 Sonnet and Claude Code by regularfry on Wednesday February 26, 2025 @01:24PM (#43186485)

That's far clearer. Yes.

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Re:Claude 3.7 Sonnet and Claude Code by simonw on Wednesday February 26, 2025 @08:39AM (#43183513)

This is a really useful definition of "agentic search", thanks.

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