What is the difference between answer relevance and context relevance in RAGAS?

In RAGAS, answer relevance checks whether the generated answer addresses the question that was actually asked, so it compares the question with the answer. Context relevance checks whether the retrieved context is focused on the query with as little irrelevant material as possible, so it compares the question with the context. Gaurav Sen frames context relevance as a precision and recall trade-off: dumping the whole database in kills precision, retrieving too little misses relevant facts.

• Gaurav Sen's answer-relevance example is asking for a phone between 10,000 and 20,000 rupees and being sold a laptop instead.

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on Gaurav Sen (2026-08-18). Read the whole episode summary →

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