Search and Question Answering

Search Settings

Configure search behavior and context expansion:

search:
  limit: 10                    # Default number of results to return
  max_context_chars: 10000     # Maximum characters in expanded context

• limit: Default number of search results to return when no limit is specified. Used by CLI, MCP server, QA, and research workflows. Default: 10
• max_context_chars: Hard limit on total characters in expanded content. Default: 10000.

Context expansion is automatic and section-aware. For structured documents (with section headers), expansion includes the entire section containing the match. For sections that exceed the budget or are too small (e.g., a title+authors area), expansion grows outward item-by-item from the match center, skipping noise labels (footnotes, page headers) — this naturally crosses into adjacent sections until the budget is filled. For unstructured documents, expansion grows outward item-by-item. Results without doc_item_refs (e.g., custom chunks passed to import_document) pass through unexpanded.

Reranking behavior

When a reranker is configured, search automatically retrieves 10x the requested limit, then reranks to return the final count. This improves result quality without requiring you to adjust limit.

Question Answering Configuration

Configure the QA workflow:

qa:
  model:
    provider: ollama
    name: gpt-oss
    enable_thinking: true
    temperature: 0.3          # Default: 0.3
  max_searches: 3       # Maximum search tool calls per question

• model: LLM configuration (see Providers)
• max_searches: Maximum number of search tool calls the QA agent can make per question (default: 3)

Research Configuration

Configure the multi-agent research workflow:

research:
  model:
    provider: ""            # Empty to use qa settings
    name: ""               # Empty to use qa model
    enable_thinking: false
    temperature: 0.3        # Default: 0.3
  max_iterations: 3
  max_concurrency: 1

• model: LLM configuration. Leave provider/model empty to inherit from qa (see Providers)
• max_iterations: Maximum planning/search iterations (default: 3)
• max_concurrency: Concurrent search operations (default: 1)

The research workflow uses an iterative feedback loop: the planner proposes one question at a time, sees the answer, then decides whether to continue or synthesize. This continues until the planner marks research as complete or max_iterations is reached.

Analysis Configuration

Configure the analysis agent:

analysis:
  model:
    provider: anthropic
    name: claude-sonnet-4-20250514
    temperature: 0.0        # Default: 0.0 (deterministic for code generation)
  code_timeout: 60.0      # Max seconds for code execution
  max_output_chars: 50000 # Truncate output after this many chars

• model: LLM configuration (see Providers)
• code_timeout: Maximum seconds for each code execution (default: 60)
• max_output_chars: Truncate code output after this many characters (default: 50000)

See Analysis Agent for usage details.