An end-to-end practical guide to building Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines. This guide walks through every step from document ingestion to answer generation, with working code for both LlamaIndex and LangChain.

Your RAG pipeline starts with loading source documents. Common formats include PDF, Markdown, HTML, and plain text.

LlamaIndex:

from llama_index.core import SimpleDirectoryReader
 
# Loads all supported file types from a directory
docs = SimpleDirectoryReader("data/").load_data()
print(f"Loaded {len(docs)} documents")

LangChain:

from langchain_community.document_loaders import DirectoryLoader
 
loader = DirectoryLoader("data/", glob="**/*.txt")
docs = loader.load()
print(f"Loaded {len(docs)} documents")

Chunking splits documents into retrievable units. The strategy you choose directly impacts retrieval quality.

Recommendation: Start with recursive chunking (size=1024, overlap=200) for most use cases.

LlamaIndex:

from llama_index.core.node_parser import SentenceSplitter
 
splitter = SentenceSplitter(chunk_size=1024, chunk_overlap=200)
nodes = splitter.get_nodes_from_documents(docs)
print(f"Created {len(nodes)} chunks")

LangChain:

from langchain_text_splitters import RecursiveCharacterTextSplitter
 
text_splitter = RecursiveCharacterTextSplitter(
    chunk_size=1024,
    chunk_overlap=200
)
splits = text_splitter.split_documents(docs)
print(f"Created {len(splits)} chunks")

from langchain_experimental.text_splitter import SemanticChunker
from langchain_openai import OpenAIEmbeddings
 
semantic_splitter = SemanticChunker(
    OpenAIEmbeddings(model="text-embedding-3-small"),
    breakpoint_threshold_type="percentile"
)
semantic_chunks = semantic_splitter.split_documents(docs)

Embeddings convert text chunks into vectors for similarity search.

Recommendation: Use BGE for open-source / self-hosted. Use OpenAI text-embedding-3-small for quick iteration.

Retrieve the top-K most relevant chunks for a given query.

Pass the retrieved context plus the user query to an LLM.

pip install llama-index llama-index-embeddings-openai llama-index-vector-stores-chroma llama-index-postprocessor-cohere-rerank chromadb

from llama_index.core import VectorStoreIndex, SimpleDirectoryReader, StorageContext
from llama_index.core.node_parser import SentenceSplitter
from llama_index.embeddings.openai import OpenAIEmbedding
from llama_index.llms.openai import OpenAI
from llama_index.vector_stores.chroma import ChromaVectorStore
from llama_index.core.postprocessor import CohereRerank
import chromadb
 
# Step 1: Load documents
docs = SimpleDirectoryReader("data/").load_data()
 
# Step 2: Chunk with recursive splitter
splitter = SentenceSplitter(chunk_size=1024, chunk_overlap=200)
nodes = splitter.get_nodes_from_documents(docs)
 
# Step 3-4: Embed and store in ChromaDB
embed_model = OpenAIEmbedding(model="text-embedding-3-small")
db = chromadb.PersistentClient(path="./chroma_db")
chroma_collection = db.get_or_create_collection("rag_demo")
vector_store = ChromaVectorStore(chroma_collection=chroma_collection)
storage_context = StorageContext.from_defaults(vector_store=vector_store)
index = VectorStoreIndex(
    nodes,
    embed_model=embed_model,
    storage_context=storage_context
)
 
# Step 5-6: Query with reranking
llm = OpenAI(model="gpt-4o-mini")
reranker = CohereRerank(top_n=3, model="rerank-english-v3.0")
query_engine = index.as_query_engine(
    llm=llm,
    node_postprocessors=[reranker]
)
 
response = query_engine.query("What are the main concepts in my documents?")
print(response)

pip install langchain langchain-openai langchain-chroma langchain-cohere

from langchain_community.document_loaders import DirectoryLoader
from langchain_text_splitters import RecursiveCharacterTextSplitter
from langchain_openai import OpenAIEmbeddings, ChatOpenAI
from langchain_chroma import Chroma
from langchain.retrievers import ContextualCompressionRetriever
from langchain.retrievers.document_compressors import CohereRerank
from langchain.chains import RetrievalQA
 
# Step 1: Load documents
loader = DirectoryLoader("data/", glob="**/*.txt")
docs = loader.load()
 
# Step 2: Chunk
text_splitter = RecursiveCharacterTextSplitter(
    chunk_size=1024,
    chunk_overlap=200
)
splits = text_splitter.split_documents(docs)
 
# Step 3-4: Embed and store in ChromaDB
embeddings = OpenAIEmbeddings(model="text-embedding-3-small")
vectorstore = Chroma.from_documents(
    documents=splits,
    embedding=embeddings,
    persist_directory="./chroma_db"
)
 
# Step 5: Retrieve with reranking
compressor = CohereRerank(model="rerank-english-v3.0")
retriever = ContextualCompressionRetriever(
    base_retriever=vectorstore.as_retriever(search_kwargs={"k": 20}),
    base_compressor=compressor
)
 
# Step 6: Generate
llm = ChatOpenAI(model="gpt-4o-mini")
qa_chain = RetrievalQA.from_chain_type(llm=llm, retriever=retriever)
result = qa_chain.invoke({"query": "What are the main concepts?"})
print(result["result"])

Combine dense vector search with sparse keyword (BM25) search for better recall, especially on proper nouns and exact terms.

from langchain.retrievers import EnsembleRetriever
from langchain_community.retrievers import BM25Retriever
 
# BM25 for keyword matching
bm25_retriever = BM25Retriever.from_documents(splits)
bm25_retriever.k = 10
 
# Vector for semantic matching
vector_retriever = vectorstore.as_retriever(search_kwargs={"k": 10})
 
# Combine with weighted ensemble
hybrid_retriever = EnsembleRetriever(
    retrievers=[bm25_retriever, vector_retriever],
    weights=[0.3, 0.7]  # Favor semantic
)
 
results = hybrid_retriever.invoke("specific technical term")

Generate a hypothetical answer first, embed that, then retrieve. Improves retrieval for vague or short queries by 5-15%.

from langchain_openai import ChatOpenAI, OpenAIEmbeddings
 
llm = ChatOpenAI(model="gpt-4o-mini")
 
def hyde_retrieve(query, vectorstore, llm):
    # Generate hypothetical answer
    hypothetical = llm.invoke(
        f"Write a short paragraph answering: {query}"
    ).content
 
    # Embed the hypothetical answer for retrieval
    results = vectorstore.similarity_search(hypothetical, k=5)
    return results

Use small chunks for precise retrieval but return the larger parent chunk to the LLM for full context.

from llama_index.core.node_parser import SentenceSplitter
from llama_index.core import VectorStoreIndex
 
# Create small child chunks for retrieval
child_splitter = SentenceSplitter(chunk_size=256, chunk_overlap=50)
child_nodes = child_splitter.get_nodes_from_documents(docs)
 
# Each child node references its parent via metadata
# LlamaIndex auto-retriever can fetch parent context
index = VectorStoreIndex(child_nodes)
retriever = index.as_retriever(similarity_top_k=5)
# Configure to return parent nodes for generation

Reranking refines the top-K retrieved results (e.g., 20 → 5) using cross-encoder models for more precise relevance scoring. This typically improves precision by 10-20%.

Both approaches require API keys set as environment variables:

export OPENAI_API_KEY="your-openai-key"
export COHERE_API_KEY="your-cohere-key"

• How to Add Memory to an Agent
• How to Evaluate an Agent
• How to Use MCP

rag retrieval-augmented-generation llamaindex langchain vector-database embeddings how-to