AI GitHub
PyLate for training and using late-interaction retrievers
Work with ColBERT-style representations and retrieval in a Python library.
Key Takeaways
- PyLate provides components for encoding with late-interaction models and using them in retrieval workflows.
- Pick a model, an indexing strategy and a labeled relevance set.
- Compare a pre-trained model with a single-vector baseline on terminology-heavy search.
- Token-level indexing changes memory and storage needs.
How it works
PyLate provides components for encoding with late-interaction models and using them in retrieval workflows. Similarity is computed using token-level signals across query and document representations.
What you need
Pick a model, an indexing strategy and a labeled relevance set. Keep the original text beside token embeddings so you can inspect the passages that received high scores.
What to try first
Compare a pre-trained model with a single-vector baseline on terminology-heavy search. Measure index size and retrieval quality before attempting to train a custom model.
Time indexing as well as query execution. Token-level methods can shift effort toward preprocessing and storage even if the top results improve.
Where to look for failures
Token-level indexing changes memory and storage needs. Use the same corpus segmentation and relevance judgments for a fair comparison.
Related Franklin pages
Keep a lexical baseline while testing learned or late-interaction retrieval. Use the same labels and input segmentation, and compare index size and search time alongside relevance.
- Index and retrieve text using token-level late interaction through a Python interface. RAGatouille for ColBERT retrieval experiments
- Run lexical and dense retrieval experiments with research-oriented tooling. Pyserini for reproducible retrieval baselines
For the full path from source documents to generated answers, start with Franklin’s glossary. Retrieval-augmented generation
Project documentation
Try it for your workflow
Explore the project’s documentation for setup and usage, or save this page to a collection for later.
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