Query Papers via RAG

Use papi ask for questions requiring synthesis across papers or cited answers.

Cost-Aware Retrieval

Before using RAG, consider cheaper alternatives:

1. •Exact match: papi search --rg "query" — fast, no LLM
2. •Ranked search: papi search "query" — BM25 ranking
3. •Direct read: papi show <paper> -l eq|tex|summary — if you know the paper

Use papi ask only when:

• •User explicitly requests RAG/synthesis
• •Question spans multiple papers
• •Search/show cannot answer

Commands

# PaperQA2 (default) — full RAG with citations
papi ask "question"

# LEANN — faster semantic search + LLM
papi ask "question" --backend leann

# Structured output for programmatic use
papi ask "question" --format evidence-blocks

MCP Tools (if available)

For quick retrieval without full RAG:

• •leann_search(index_name, query, top_k) — fast semantic search
• •retrieve_chunks(query, index_name, k) — PaperQA2 chunks with citations

Check available indexes: leann_list() or list_pqa_indexes()

Output

RAG answers include:

• •Synthesized response
• •Citations with page/section references
• •Confidence indicators

For general CLI commands, see /papi.