PRODUCTION SCENARIO
A Generative AI Engineer indexes technical manuals with a fixed 800-character splitter. Retrieved chunks routinely start mid-sentence and drop the section heading that says which model of pump the steps apply to.
Which change to the chunking step addresses this?
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Answer: Split on the heading structure and prepend it to each chunk's text
Splitting on the document's own structure keeps a section intact, and putting the heading into the chunk's text means it is embedded with the steps and reaches the model as part of the passage. Storing it in a metadata column fixes neither: the vector still lacks it and the model still receives a passage that cannot be interpreted, unless the column is explicitly injected. Overlap repairs a mid-sentence start but cannot pull down a heading many chunks above, and page chunks still split a heading from steps continuing overleaf.