Retrieval Triggers

Deciding whether a turn should consult memory at all, before deciding what to retrieve.

Why it matters in a memory layer

Retrieving on every turn is the default and is wrong most of the time — measured on this corpus, 3 of 25 turns genuinely ask the store for anything; the rest are the user telling it things. Every needless retrieval spends a ranking pass and, worse, produces an answer, because a retriever always returns something. The subtlety is that a question mark does not mean a question: "can you keep answers shorter?" is an instruction and "I left Northwind, remember?" is a correction. Both are new information, and retrieving for them is how an assistant ends up arguing with a user who is correcting it.

Connections

Taught in: Should I Even Look?