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Why many RAG proofs of concept do not survive production

A proof of concept can produce impressive answers with a few curated documents and a vector database. Production is different. Enterprise content changes, permissions vary by user, documents contain complex structures, multiple repositories disagree, and users ask questions outside the knowledge base. A production architecture must solve those problems explicitly rather than assuming retrieval quality will emerge from embeddings alone.

The blueprint starts with trust boundaries

Map the full data path: source repositories → ingestion → parsing → metadata → indexes → retrieval → orchestration → model → application → logs. For every boundary, identify the identity used, data classification, encryption, network controls, retention and who can access the resulting artifacts. This prevents a common failure mode where source permissions are strong but the vector index becomes a less-protected copy of sensitive content.