Wrong API version advice costs more than slow typing. Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) reduces that — if sources are fresh and scoped.
Three retrieval layers we use
- IDE codebase index (local)
- Live docs via MCP (Context7-style)
- Project markdown in
docs/
When skip vector DBs
For a single WordPress theme repo, git + docs + MCP beats maintaining embeddings — until you have hundreds of microservices.
Quality checks
- Ask for doc version in the answer
- Cross-check against official changelog
- Run the code — always