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The RAG atlas.

How external knowledge became part of generation. A guided collection of research ideas, not a claim that history follows one straight line.

A model can remember something.
A retrieval system can look it up.
The interesting work begins where they meet.

Retrieval connects a question to external sourcesA question and a source collection feed retrieval. Retrieved context feeds generation. Generation produces an answer. Arrows show the direction of data flow.QuestionRetrievalGenerationSourcesAnswerA conceptual pipeline — not a running model
External knowledge changes what the model can consult. It does not remove the need to check what it says.

The map is still being drawn.

Retrieval can miss the right passage. A generator can ignore a good one. Newer work asks when to retrieve, how to represent a document, and how to evaluate whether an answer is supported.

These are future reading directions, not reviewed results. Our current atlas contains 6 foundational notes. It does not claim exhaustive coverage through today.

Follow the reading agenda ↗ · Try a retrieval boundary ↗