rag-skills

Agent Building

RAG-specific best practices for LlamaIndex, ChromaDB, and Celery workers. Covers ingestion, retrieval, embeddings, and performance.

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RAG Skills for LlamaFarm

Framework-specific patterns and code review checklists for the RAG component.

Extends: python-skills - All Python best practices apply here.

Component Overview

Aspect	Technology	Version
Python	Python	3.11+
Document Processing	LlamaIndex	0.13+
Vector Storage	ChromaDB	1.0+
Task Queue	Celery	5.5+
Embeddings	Universal/Ollama/OpenAI	Multiple

Directory Structure

rag/
├── api.py                 # Search and database APIs
├── celery_app.py          # Celery configuration
├── main.py                # Entry point
├── core/
│   ├── base.py            # Document, Component, Pipeline ABCs
│   ├── factories.py       # Component factories
│   ├── ingest_handler.py  # File ingestion with safety checks
│   ├── blob_processor.py  # Binary file processing
│   ├── settings.py        # Pydantic settings
│   └── logging.py         # RAGStructLogger
├── components/
│   ├── embedders/         # Embedding providers
│   ├── extractors/        # Metadata extractors
│   ├── parsers/           # Document parsers (LlamaIndex)
│   ├── retrievers/        # Retrieval strategies
│   └── stores/            # Vector stores (ChromaDB, FAISS)
├── tasks/                 # Celery tasks
│   ├── ingest_tasks.py    # File ingestion
│   ├── search_tasks.py    # Database search
│   ├── query_tasks.py     # Complex queries
│   ├── health_tasks.py    # Health checks
│   └── stats_tasks.py     # Statistics
└── utils/
    └── embedding_safety.py  # Circuit breaker, validation

Quick Reference

Topic	File	Key Points
LlamaIndex	llamaindex.md	Document parsing, chunking, node conversion
ChromaDB	chromadb.md	Collections, embeddings, distance metrics
Celery	celery.md	Task routing, error handling, worker config
Performance	performance.md	Batching, caching, deduplication

Core Patterns

Document Dataclass

from dataclasses import dataclass, field
from typing import Any

@dataclass
class Document:
    content: str
    metadata: dict[str, Any] = field(default_factory=dict)
    id: str = field(default_factory=lambda: str(uuid.uuid4()))
    source: str | None = None
    embeddings: list[float] | None = None

Component Abstract Base Class

from abc import ABC, abstractmethod

class Component(ABC):
    def __init__(
        self,
        name: str | None = None,
        config: dict[str, Any] | None = None,
        project_dir: Path | None = None,
    ):
        self.name = name or self.__class__.__name__
        self.config = config or {}
        self.logger = RAGStructLogger(__name__).bind(name=self.name)
        self.project_dir = project_dir

    @abstractmethod
    def process(self, documents: list[Document]) -> ProcessingResult:
        pass

Retrieval Strategy Pattern

class RetrievalStrategy(Component, ABC):
    @abstractmethod
    def retrieve(
        self,
        query_embedding: list[float],
        vector_store,
        top_k: int = 5,
        **kwargs
    ) -> RetrievalResult:
        pass

    @abstractmethod
    def supports_vector_store(self, vector_store_type: str) -> bool:
        pass

Embedder with Circuit Breaker

class Embedder(Component):
    DEFAULT_FAILURE_THRESHOLD = 5
    DEFAULT_RESET_TIMEOUT = 60.0

    def __init__(self, ...):
        super().__init__(...)
        self._circuit_breaker = CircuitBreaker(
            failure_threshold=config.get("failure_threshold", 5),
            reset_timeout=config.get("reset_timeout", 60.0),
        )
        self._fail_fast = config.get("fail_fast", True)

    def embed_text(self, text: str) -> list[float]:
        self.check_circuit_breaker()
        try:
            embedding = self._call_embedding_api(text)
            self.record_success()
            return embedding
        except Exception as e:
            self.record_failure(e)
            if self._fail_fast:
                raise EmbedderUnavailableError(str(e)) from e
            return [0.0] * self.get_embedding_dimension()

Review Checklist Summary

When reviewing RAG code:

LlamaIndex (Medium priority)
- Proper chunking configuration
- Metadata preservation during parsing
- Error handling for unsupported formats
ChromaDB (High priority)
- Thread-safe client access
- Proper distance metric selection
- Metadata type compatibility
Celery (High priority)
- Task routing to correct queue
- Error logging with context
- Proper serialization
Performance (Medium priority)
- Batch processing for embeddings
- Deduplication enabled
- Appropriate caching

See individual topic files for detailed checklists with grep patterns.