Singular State https://singular-state.com Advanced technical expertise for feasibility, prototyping and modernization. We build the working pilot and ramp up your team to take it forward. en-US Chunking is a retrieval decision, not a preprocessing detail https://singular-state.com/articles/chunking-is-a-retrieval-decision/ https://singular-state.com/articles/chunking-is-a-retrieval-decision/ Mon, 07 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Where the boundary falls decides whether a rule and its exception arrive together. The pipeline that cannot delete a withdrawn document is the failure that survives handover. Escrow does not survive model deprecation https://singular-state.com/articles/escrow-does-not-survive-model-deprecation/ https://singular-state.com/articles/escrow-does-not-survive-model-deprecation/ Mon, 07 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Source escrow assumes the artifact is the source. Where behaviour depends on a hosted model the provider retires, the deposited package no longer reproduces the system. Guardrails are an architecture, not a filter https://singular-state.com/articles/guardrails-are-an-architecture/ https://singular-state.com/articles/guardrails-are-an-architecture/ Mon, 07 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Controls belong at the boundary that can enforce them. Authorisation happens in the downstream system, not in the model, and autonomy level sets how much each layer must carry. LLM-as-judge, and what calibrating it against humans actually requires https://singular-state.com/articles/llm-as-judge-calibration/ https://singular-state.com/articles/llm-as-judge-calibration/ Mon, 07 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 A judge is a measurement component with order sensitivity and no established authority. Swap the presentation order, and a judge that picks the first answer both times has produced two conflicting verdicts. Prompt injection is a tool-permission problem https://singular-state.com/articles/prompt-injection-is-tool-permissions/ https://singular-state.com/articles/prompt-injection-is-tool-permissions/ Mon, 07 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 The injection is not the vulnerability; the tool the injected instruction can reach is. Retrieval and fine-tuning do not mitigate it, and prototypes grant permissions generously. Retrieval, fine-tuning, prompting: which problem each one solves https://singular-state.com/articles/retrieval-fine-tuning-prompting/ https://singular-state.com/articles/retrieval-fine-tuning-prompting/ Mon, 07 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Three intervention points, not three exclusive strategies — the original RAG paper already combined two of them. Diagnose the failure before choosing the technique. Run cost is the number the prototype hides https://singular-state.com/articles/run-cost-the-prototype-hides/ https://singular-state.com/articles/run-cost-the-prototype-hides/ Mon, 07 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Build cost is paid once; inference, retrieval, review and monitoring scale with use. A cheaper model bill can raise cost per accepted outcome, and the run-cost owner is absent from the approval.