Contextual Retrieval

Contextual retrieval prepends a short, document-level summary or situating description to each chunk before embedding it, giving the retriever richer signal about where each passage fits within its source document. Without this context, a standalone chunk may lack the surrounding information needed to answer queries that reference the document as a whole. Adding even a brief contextual preamble measurably improves retrieval accuracy for documents where meaning depends heavily on surrounding structure, such as technical manuals or legal contracts.