Topic 4: Feedback-Loop Patterns
10 min read·21 Sept 2026
The shared idea: stop trusting the first retrieval. Grade it, critique the draft, and go back when something is missing. These patterns buy quality with LLM calls and latency.
| Pattern | The loop | Extra calls | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Self-RAG | Decide whether to retrieve, grade passages, critique the draft, retry once | 3+ | Mixed traffic where quality matters |
| Corrective RAG (CRAG) | Grade the set; good, ambiguous, or bad, each with a different action | 1+ | Corpora with gaps and a fallback source |
| Adaptive RAG | Classify complexity, then pick the cheapest pattern that fits | 1 | Traffic mixing trivial and hard questions |
| Iterative | Retrieve, ask what is missing, retrieve again, up to a limit | 2+ | Multi-hop research questions |
| FLARE-style | Draft, find weakly supported sentences, retrieve for those, rewrite | 1+ | Long answers that must be well supported |