RaLLe: A Framework for Developing and Evaluating Retrieval-Augmented Large Language Models

TL;DR

RaLLe is an open-source framework that enables developers to build, evaluate, and optimize retrieval-augmented large language models for knowledge-intensive tasks, addressing transparency and evaluation challenges.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive, open-source framework for developing and evaluating R-LLMs, improving transparency and optimization of prompts and inference processes.

Findings

Facilitates development and evaluation of R-LLMs

Enables assessment of individual inference steps

Supports quantitative performance measurement

Abstract

Retrieval-augmented large language models (R-LLMs) combine pre-trained large language models (LLMs) with information retrieval systems to improve the accuracy of factual question-answering. However, current libraries for building R-LLMs provide high-level abstractions without sufficient transparency for evaluating and optimizing prompts within specific inference processes such as retrieval and generation. To address this gap, we present RaLLe, an open-source framework designed to facilitate the development, evaluation, and optimization of R-LLMs for knowledge-intensive tasks. With RaLLe, developers can easily develop and evaluate R-LLMs, improving hand-crafted prompts, assessing individual inference processes, and objectively measuring overall system performance quantitatively. By leveraging these features, developers can enhance the performance and accuracy of their R-LLMs in knowledge-intensive generation tasks. We open-source our code at https://github.com/yhoshi3/RaLLe.