What is parent-child chunking?medium

Type
conceptual
Topic
is-parent-child-chunking
Frequency
common
Tags
rag, what, parent, child, chunking
Answer

Split documents into small child chunks for precise retrieval and large parent chunks for rich context.

Explanation

Split documents into small child chunks for precise retrieval and large parent chunks for rich context. Retrieve by child chunk similarity, but return the parent chunk to the LLM. Gives retrieval precision (small chunks match queries better) + generation quality (LLM gets full context). Useful for a document extraction pipeline where a clause reference only makes sense in its full paragraph context.

Follow-upCan you give a production example?