I3

⛔ Prerequisites (v8.2 — MCP Enforcement)

diverga_check_prerequisites("i3") → must return approved: true If not approved → AskUserQuestion for each missing checkpoint (see .claude/references/checkpoint-templates.md)

Checkpoints During Execution

• 🟠 SCH_RAG_READINESS → diverga_mark_checkpoint("SCH_RAG_READINESS", decision, rationale)

Fallback (MCP unavailable)

Read .research/decision-log.yaml directly to verify prerequisites. Conversation history is last resort.

I3-RAGBuilder

Agent ID: I3 Category: I - Systematic Review Automation Tier: LOW (Haiku) Icon: 🗄️⚡

Overview

Builds a RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) system from PRISMA-selected papers. Uses completely free local embeddings and ChromaDB, making the RAG building stage $0 cost. Handles PDF download, text extraction, chunking, and vector database creation.

Zero-Cost Stack

Total RAG Building Cost: $0

Input Schema

Required:
  - project_path: "string"

Optional:
  - chunk_size_tokens: "int (default: 500)"
  - chunk_overlap_tokens: "int (default: 100)"
  - embedding_model: "string (default: all-MiniLM-L6-v2)"
  - delay_between_downloads: "float (default: 2.0)"
  - download_timeout: "int (default: 30)"

Output Schema

main_output:
  stage: "rag_build"
  pdf_download:
    total_papers: "int"
    downloaded: "int"
    failed: "int"
    success_rate: "string"
    total_size_mb: "int"
  rag_build:
    total_chunks: "int"
    avg_chunks_per_paper: "float"
    chunk_size_tokens: "int"
    chunk_overlap_tokens: "int"
    embedding_model: "string"
    embedding_dimensions: "int"
    vector_db: "string"
  output_paths:
    pdfs: "string"
    chroma_db: "string"
    rag_config: "string"

Human Checkpoint Protocol

🟠 SCH_RAG_READINESS (RECOMMENDED)

Before completing RAG build, I3 SHOULD:

1. REPORT build status:

   RAG Build Complete
   
   PDF Download:
   - Total papers: 287
   - PDFs downloaded: 245 (85.4%)
   - PDFs unavailable: 42
   
   Vector Database:
   - Total chunks: 4,850
   - Avg chunks/paper: 19.8
   - Embedding model: all-MiniLM-L6-v2
   - Database: ChromaDB
   
   Storage:
   - PDF size: 1.2 GB
   - Vector DB size: 450 MB
   
   Ready for research queries?
   

2. ASK if user wants to proceed

3. CONFIRM RAG is ready for queries

Execution Commands

# Project path (set to your working directory)
cd "$(pwd)"

# Stage 4: PDF Download
python scripts/04_download_pdfs.py \
  --project {project_path} \
  --delay 2.0 \
  --timeout 30

# Stage 5: RAG Build
python scripts/05_build_rag.py \
  --project {project_path} \
  --chunk-size 1000 \
  --chunk-overlap 200 \
  --embedding-model sentence-transformers/all-MiniLM-L6-v2

Chunking Strategy (v1.2.6: Token-Based)

Problem: Documentation says "1000 tokens" but code used "1000 characters"

Fix: Token-based chunking with tiktoken

import tiktoken
tokenizer = tiktoken.get_encoding("cl100k_base")

# Settings
chunk_size_tokens = 500    # Actual tokens
chunk_overlap_tokens = 100  # Actual tokens

# Character fallback (if tiktoken unavailable)
chunk_size_chars = 1000
chunk_overlap_chars = 200

Embedding Model Options

All models run locally at zero cost.

PDF Download Strategy

Open Access Sources

Retry Logic

max_retries = 3
base_delay = 2.0

for attempt in range(max_retries):
    try:
        download_pdf(url)
        break
    except Timeout:
        delay = base_delay * (2 ** attempt)
        time.sleep(delay)

Validation

• Minimum file size: 1KB
• Content-Type: application/pdf
• PDF header check: %PDF-

Vector Database Structure

data/04_rag/
├── chroma_db/
│   ├── chroma.sqlite3      # Metadata store
│   ├── {collection_id}/    # Vector embeddings
│   └── index/              # HNSW index
└── rag_config.json         # Configuration

Query Testing

After build, I3 tests retrieval with research question:

# Test query
results = vectorstore.similarity_search(
    research_question,
    k=5
)

# Report results
for doc in results:
    print(f"- {doc.metadata['title']} ({doc.metadata['year']})")
    print(f"  Preview: {doc.page_content[:150]}...")

Auto-Trigger Keywords

Absorbed Capabilities (v11.0)

From B5 — Parallel Document Processor

• Distributed Workload Splitting: Partition PDF collection into balanced worker batches by file size, configurable worker count (default: CPU cores - 1, max: 8), dynamic rebalancing
• High-Throughput PDF Reading: Parallel text extraction using multiprocessing Pool, per-worker memory limits (default: 2GB), automatic fallback (PyMuPDF -> pdfplumber -> OCR), streaming mode for PDFs > 50MB
• Batch Extraction Pipeline: Pool-based parallel processing with configurable chunk size and overlap
• Performance Targets: <50 PDFs sequential (<5 min), 50-200 PDFs 4 workers (<10 min), 200-500 PDFs 6 workers (<20 min), 500+ PDFs 8 workers (<45 min)
• Error Handling in Parallel Mode: Failed PDFs logged without halting other workers, retry queue for transient failures, checkpoint files for resuming interrupted processing

Error Handling

Dependencies

requires: ["I2-screening-assistant"]
sequential_next: []
parallel_compatible: []

Related Agents

• I0-review-pipeline-orchestrator: Pipeline coordination
• I2-screening-assistant: PRISMA screening