Open source · MIT · Python

Local retrieval,
without the vector tax.

Jev RAG searches local documents through seven selectable paths: BM25 + Jev, agentic lexical search, embedding hybrid retrieval, multi-round Agentic Hybrid, corpus-taxonomy routing, a unified Jev Passage Gate, or hierarchical Jev Line Search. Embeddings remain optional.

$git clone https://github.com/aifabrice/jev-rag.git
0vector databases required
3,633NFCorpus documents evaluated
323test queries, not a hand-picked sample
0.451highest recorded nDCG@10 point estimate

Public benchmark

See what each stage adds.

Complete BEIR NFCorpus test split. Select a pipeline to compare its recorded retrieval quality against the BM25 baseline.

Agentic Hybrid + Jev/retrieval fusion0.450750nDCG@10
nDCG@100.450750
MRR@100.652606
Recall@100.220885

A dev-selected zero-call rank fusion improved the Jev-only order; two-round planning still raised cold retrieval latency to 6.99 s median.

Measured, not marketed. These are project-run results, not an official MTEB submission. The headline comparison keeps one representative result in the 0.44 band and the highest measured pipeline at 0.450750. Near-duplicate and negative experiments remain in the full report for reproducibility. Read the full configuration and caveats →

Architecture

Start simple. Add semantics only when they earn their keep.

LocalYour documentsPDF · DOCX · Markdown · HTML
Index
DefaultSQLite FTS5 / BM25Fast, inspectable lexical retrieval
OptionalAgentic, embedding, or bothTwo-round search planning and semantic recall can be fused
ExperimentalCorpus taxonomy routingHybrid top 50 plus routed leaf-node candidates
ExperimentalUnified Jev Passage GateRelevance, evidence, conflict and injection routing
ExperimentalTwo-level Jev Line SearchParallel 255-passage windows, then global Choice
Rerank
EvidenceJevScore and order candidate passages
Answer
GroundedMiniMaxStreaming response with citations

Deliberate trade-offs

No architecture wins every query.

Strong

Exact terms, IDs and names

BM25 is fast, local, transparent, and excellent when question language overlaps the source.

Watch

Synonyms and paraphrases

The default path can miss semantic matches. Agentic search or hybrid retrieval can widen recall.

Know the boundary

Know what leaves the machine

Default retrieval stays local before reranking. Line Search is different: a bounded representation of every indexed passage is sent to Jev in windows, making it the most expensive mode.

Direct answer

What is Jev RAG?

Jev RAG is an open-source, local-first knowledge search application. It indexes files into SQLite FTS5, retrieves passages with BM25, uses the Jev model to rerank evidence, and asks MiniMax to produce a cited answer. Its default path does not require embeddings or a vector database.

Use BM25 for exact terms, Agentic for query reformulation, and hybrid retrieval for semantic recall. Use experimental Line Search when you want to measure Jev-only full-corpus retrieval and accept its larger cost and remote-data boundary.

Try it on your own corpus

A benchmark is a starting point.
Your documents are the real test.