Retrieval Freshness Decay
The degradation of retrieval quality over time as source objects in S3 evolve, are deleted, or become semantically outdated — while the corresponding vector embeddings, index entries, and cached retrieval results remain frozen at their original state. Agents that rely on stale embeddings retrieve outdated instructions, deprecated business logic, or invalidated facts; the failure is silent because retrieval still succeeds.
Definition
The degradation of retrieval quality over time as source objects in S3 evolve, are deleted, or become semantically outdated — while the corresponding vector embeddings, index entries, and cached retrieval results remain frozen at their original state. Agents that rely on stale embeddings retrieve outdated instructions, deprecated business logic, or invalidated facts; the failure is silent because retrieval still succeeds.