§How we work
Four stages, with a decision point after the first.
The assessment exists to produce a decision, not a follow-on contract. If what your documents actually need is a product you can buy off the shelf, that is what the recommendation will say.
- 01
Assess
We go through the documents with you: formats, volume, how clean they are, and who is allowed to read what. Then we run a retrieval test against a sample of your real material so the accuracy number is measured rather than asserted.
You get
A written recommendation and a go or no-go.
- 02
Architect
The design gets written down before anything is built: where the boundary sits, how permissions are enforced, what runs where, how documents get in and how updates get applied. Your security team reviews a document rather than a running system.
You get
An architecture your reviewers can assess.
- 03
Build
The system, in your environment. Ingestion, retrieval, permission-aware access, the citation interface, and an evaluation harness running against a test set you have agreed is correct.
You get
A working system with its evaluation suite attached.
- 04
Hand over
Documentation, a walkthrough of how it behaves when it goes wrong, and enough time with your people that they can run it without us. We are available afterwards, but that should be your choice rather than a dependency.
You get
Your team running it.
What we need from you
Three things, and the first is the hard one.
Someone who knows the documents
The content, not the technology. Which policies supersede which, which folders have gone stale, who owns what. This is consistently what decides whether a retrieval system turns out good or mediocre.
A decision on access
Who may read what, written down precisely enough that software can enforce it. For a lot of organizations this is the first time that has had to be pinned down.
A real test set
Twenty to fifty questions your people actually ask, with answers you agree are correct. Without one, quality is a matter of opinion.
Scope
Start the conversation anywhere.
Retrieval is what we do most and know best, so it is what this site describes. It is rarely the whole picture. The documents have to be cleaned up, the permissions have to be worked out, something has to be wired into the tools your people already use.
If you are looking at any of that, or at something we have not mentioned here, get in touch and we will tell you plainly whether it is work we can do well.