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RAG & Agent System Design / 13

What is Self-RAG / adaptive retrieval, and how does the model decide when to retrieve?

Always retrieving is wasteful and sometimes harmful; never retrieving hallucinates. Self-RAG makes retrieval a decision the model controls, then critiques what it got back. The signal is the retrieve-on-demand plus self-critique loop.

Updated Aug 2026 · Grounded in real Applied AI Engineer interview loops and written to a senior-engineer editorial bar.

Always retrieving is wasteful and sometimes harmful; never retrieving hallucinates. Self-RAG makes retrieval a decision the model controls, then critiques what it got back. The signal is the retrieve-on-demand plus self-critique loop.

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