Field notes / Patterns
Step 2 of 3 in the pattern system
Pattern - draft
Three passes from corpus to production posture — each stage answers a different question.
A practical model for discussing retrieval systems without mixing exploratory work with production commitments.
Staged maturity — not a single score.
Name the lane you are in—foundation, workflow composition, or production posture.
That keeps “RAG quality” from collapsing three different problems into one debate.
Weak pass 1 makes pass 2 tuning hide failures, not fix them.
Schedule pressure pulls teams to models and rerankers unless the thread stays staged.
Lock artifacts and owners per pass before widening scope.
Use in architecture reviews and roadmaps when “better retrieval” is mistaken for “production ready.”
Not a substitute for domain benchmarks—you still define those.
This pattern expresses itself across three passes:
System model
How foundation, composition, and posture connect.
flowchart LR
pass1[RetrievalFoundation] --> pass2[WorkflowComposition]
pass2 --> pass3[ProductionPosture]
pass1 --> evidence[EvidenceQuality]
pass2 --> orchestration[BoundaryDiscipline]
pass3 --> operations[ObservabilityAndControls]
If pass 1 is unstable, pass 2 complexity usually hides failures instead of solving them.
Then explore
Continue with