RAG Inspect

RAG Inspect

Query the index database directly to understand chunk counts, sizes, metadata, and content. Use when you need to diagnose index health, find what's missing, or audit coverage.

Quick index summary

sqlite3 ~/.claude/rag-index/index.sqlite "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM chunks;"

Expected: ~14,355 chunks

Chunks by source type

See how the corpus is distributed across different content categories:

sqlite3 ~/.claude/rag-index/index.sqlite << 'EOF'
SELECT source_type, COUNT(*) as chunk_count, 
       ROUND(AVG(LENGTH(text)), 0) as avg_size
FROM chunks
GROUP BY source_type
ORDER BY COUNT(*) DESC;
EOF

Example output:

source_type        chunk_count  avg_size
skills             539          245
handoffs           259          312
code               1847         218
standards          54           401
plans              198          267
...

Healthy baselines:

• skills: ≥500 chunks (comprehensive coverage)
• handoffs: ≥200 chunks
• standards, codex: ≥50 chunks combined
• code: scales with repo size

Chunks by repository

Find which repos are well-indexed and which are thin:

sqlite3 ~/.claude/rag-index/index.sqlite << 'EOF'
SELECT repo, COUNT(*) as chunk_count
FROM chunks
WHERE repo IS NOT NULL
GROUP BY repo
ORDER BY COUNT(*) DESC;
EOF

Repos with <50 chunks likely have gaps.

Chunks for a specific file

Find all chunks extracted from a single source file:

sqlite3 ~/.claude/rag-index/index.sqlite << 'EOF'
SELECT id, start_line, end_line, LENGTH(text) as size
FROM chunks
WHERE path LIKE '%filename%'
ORDER BY start_line;
EOF

Replace %filename% with part of the file path. Example:

sqlite3 ~/.claude/rag-index/index.sqlite \
  "SELECT id, start_line, end_line, LENGTH(text) FROM chunks WHERE path LIKE '%SKILL.md%' LIMIT 5;"

View chunk text

Read the actual content of a chunk:

sqlite3 ~/.claude/rag-index/index.sqlite << 'EOF'
SELECT text FROM chunks
WHERE path LIKE '%standards/code.md%'
LIMIT 3;
EOF

Replace the path and limit to control output size.

Find chunks by size

Too small (<80 chars) = truncated or useless. Too large (>2000 chars) = too coarse for retrieval.

Tiny chunks (potential truncation):

sqlite3 ~/.claude/rag-index/index.sqlite << 'EOF'
SELECT path, LENGTH(text) as size, text
FROM chunks
WHERE LENGTH(text) < 80
ORDER BY LENGTH(text)
LIMIT 10;
EOF

Giant chunks (too coarse):

sqlite3 ~/.claude/rag-index/index.sqlite << 'EOF'
SELECT path, LENGTH(text) as size
FROM chunks
WHERE LENGTH(text) > 2000
ORDER BY LENGTH(text) DESC
LIMIT 10;
EOF

Ideal chunk size distribution:

sqlite3 ~/.claude/rag-index/index.sqlite << 'EOF'
SELECT 
  CASE 
    WHEN LENGTH(text) < 100 THEN 'tiny (<100)'
    WHEN LENGTH(text) < 300 THEN 'small (100-300)'
    WHEN LENGTH(text) < 800 THEN 'medium (300-800)'
    ELSE 'large (800+)'
  END as size_bucket,
  COUNT(*) as chunk_count,
  ROUND(AVG(LENGTH(text)), 0) as avg_size
FROM chunks
GROUP BY size_bucket
ORDER BY avg_size;
EOF

Goal: Most chunks in the 200–800 range.

Count chunks with missing metadata

Check if chunks have embeddings (nullable field):

sqlite3 ~/.claude/rag-index/index.sqlite << 'EOF'
SELECT COUNT(*) as no_embedding FROM chunks WHERE embedding IS NULL;
EOF

Zero is healthy. If >0, re-embed those chunks.

Chunks from a specific source type + repo combo

Combine filters to find niche coverage:

sqlite3 ~/.claude/rag-index/index.sqlite << 'EOF'
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM chunks
WHERE source_type = 'code' AND repo = 'forgekit';
EOF

Replace source_type and repo with values from earlier queries.

Check for duplicate chunks

Identical content in two chunks = potential index error:

sqlite3 ~/.claude/rag-index/index.sqlite << 'EOF'
SELECT text, COUNT(*) as occurrences
FROM chunks
GROUP BY text
HAVING COUNT(*) > 1
ORDER BY occurrences DESC;
EOF

If you find duplicates, note the paths and consider a full rebuild.

Good chunks vs. bad chunks

Troubleshooting

"Chunk count is much lower than expected"

• Verify the index file exists: ls -lh ~/.claude/rag-index/index.sqlite
• Check if a full rebuild is in progress
• Run report.py to see the latest index state

"Many chunks are <100 chars"

• Run the adt-rag-index-rebuild skill with --full to re-chunk
• Or check build.py chunk size configuration

"A repo has 0 chunks but has source files"

• Verify the repo path is in build.py's source list
• Run incremental reindex for that repo: build.py --incremental /path/to/repo/**/*.py

See also

• adt-rag-coverage — audit corpus distribution by type and repo
• adt-rag-quality — find zero-hit queries and weak retrievals
• adt-rag-index-rebuild — reindex after findings require changes