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VECTOR-SEARCH5 MIN READ

Filter Before Or After?

Choose pre-filtering or post-filtering based on access control, recall risk, and candidate pool size.

0 tolerance for cross-tenant retrieval 2 filter roles: eligibility vs preference 50 candidate hits may be needed before a narrow post-filter A query must search only documents the user is permitted to see, but the user also prefers documents updated this quarter. What is the strongest design? Pre-filter permissions and tenant scope, then treat freshness as a filter or boost based on recall tests Retrieve globally with vectors first, then hide unauthorized results in the interface Pre-filter every metadata field, including freshness, department, and document type, before measuring recall Remove metadata filters and rely on semantic similarity because permissions are…

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