agent-platform-rag-engine-management

SKILL.md

Agent Platform RAG Engine Management

This skill provides instructions on how to interact with Agent Platform RAG
Engine using the Agent Platform Python SDK. You MUST use the vertexai Python
SDK to perform RAG Engine operations, rather than raw REST calls or MCP tools,
because this code is intended to be run by external clients.

Safety & Confirmation Tiers (CRITICAL)

Before executing any commands or scripts on behalf of the user, you must adhere
to the following safety tiers based on the action requested:

Tier R: Read-only (list_corpora, list_files, get_corpus,
retrieval_query)

No confirmation needed. Execute immediately to gather information or
retrieve grounded contexts.

Tier RC: Read-only but consumes Compute Resources
(client.models.generate_content)

*   Requires **interactive confirmation** with 'Yes'/'No' options before
    executing grounded content generation. The confirmation prompt MUST
    clearly explain the proposed generation execution and its key parameters
    (e.g., target corpus ID, query text, target model). Natural-language
    paraphrases without specifying exact parameters are insufficient, as
    explicit parameter listing is required to ensure unambiguous user
    approval of the specific resource and configuration.
*   **Same-turn restriction**: Do not execute the generation code in the
    same turn as presenting the confirmation prompt. Stop and wait for the
    user's reply; only execute after explicit 'Yes' / approval.
*   **Gold Standard Example**:

    > I will perform grounded content generation with the following
    > parameters. Please confirm this information before I proceed:
    >
    > *   **Target Corpus ID**: `projects/123/locations/us/ragCorpora/abc`
    > *   **Target Model**: `gemini-2.5-pro`
    > *   **Query Text**: "What are the company policies on remote work?"
    >
    > Do you confirm? [Yes/No]

Phase 0: Environment Setup

CRITICAL: Before running any of the Python snippets below, you must ensure
the environment is correctly initialized by following these steps:

Google Cloud Authentication: Authenticate with your Google Cloud
credentials and configure active Application Default Credentials (ADC) for
Agent Platform access:

gcloud auth login
gcloud auth application-default login

Python Dependencies: This skill needs google-cloud-aiplatform and
google-genai, which the sandbox already provides. Do not create a
virtual environment — it starts empty and hides packages the environment
already provides, forcing a redundant install. Do not spend a separate
command checking for them: run the snippet directly, and only if it fails
with ModuleNotFoundError, install in the same command as the retry:

pip install -q google-cloud-aiplatform google-genai && python3 - <<'PY'
...
PY

Execution: Run each snippet as a quoted heredoc, python3 - <<'PY' ...
PY, rather than python3 -c '...', whose nested quotes break easily.
There is no environment to activate first. When one step needs several of
the snippets below (for example, list the corpora and then the files in
each), combine them into one script and one command. The
vertexai.preview.rag deprecation warning printed on stderr is expected;
keep using these snippets rather than switching clients because of it.

Workflow Decision Tree

Information Gathering: Has the user provided the Project ID, Region, and
Corpus ID?

No -> Proceed to [1. Listing Corpora and Files] to discover the
necessary Resource Names and IDs. Only ask the user if discovery fails.

Yes -> Proceed.

Task Type: What does the user want to do?

List Corpora and Files -> Proceed to [1. Listing Corpora and Files].

Inspect a Corpus -> Proceed to [2. Getting / Inspecting a RAG Engine
Corpus].

Search for Contexts -> Proceed to [3. Retrieving Contexts].

Answer questions using RAG Engine -> Proceed to [4. Answering the
User with Retrieved Context].

[!TIP]

Placeholder Parameter Replacement: The Python scripts below use bracketed
string placeholders (like "{project_id}", "{region}", and
"{corpus_id}"). You MUST dynamically replace these placeholders with the
actual Project ID, Region, and Corpus ID values provided in the user's prompt
(or active context) before generating, providing, or executing the scripts.

1. Listing Corpora and Files (Discovery)

If you do not know the Resource Name of the corpus or file, you MUST list them
first to discover them. The SDK handles pagination automatically when converted
to a list, but you can also use manual pagination for large sets.

1.1 Listing and Discovering Corpora

import vertexai
from vertexai.preview import rag

vertexai.init(project="{project_id}", location="{region}")

# Approach A: List ALL (Automatic Pagination)
# The SDK's Pager iterates through all pages for you.
all_corpora = list(rag.list_corpora())
print(f"Found {len(all_corpora)} corpora in total.")
for c in all_corpora:
    print(f"Corpus Name: {c.name} | Display Name: {c.display_name}")

# Approach B: Manual Pagination (for very large projects)
pager = rag.list_corpora(page_size=10)
# Process first page
for c in pager:
    print(f"Corpus: {c.display_name}")

# Get next page if needed
if pager.next_page_token:
    second_page = rag.list_corpora(
        page_size=10, page_token=pager.next_page_token
    )

1.2 Listing and Discovering Files

To understand what files (and types) are in a corpus, list them and inspect the
display_name (usually includes the extension).

import vertexai
from vertexai.preview import rag

vertexai.init(project="{project_id}", location="{region}")
corpus_name = (
    "projects/{project_id}/locations/{region}/ragCorpora/{corpus_id}"
)

# List files with automatic pagination
files = list(rag.list_files(corpus_name=corpus_name))
print(f"Found {len(files)} files.")

for f in files:
    # High-level SDK RagFile objects usually have name, display_name,
    # description
    print(f"File: {f.display_name} | Resource: {f.name}")
    # Tip: Check extension to understand file type (PDF, TXT, etc.)
    if f.display_name.lower().endswith(".pdf"):
        print("  Type: PDF")
    elif f.display_name.lower().endswith(".txt"):
        print("  Type: Plain Text")

2. Getting / Inspecting an Agent Platform RAG Engine Corpus

To retrieve details about an existing Agent Platform RAG Engine corpus:

import vertexai
from vertexai.preview import rag

vertexai.init(project="{project_id}", location="{region}")

# To get details of a specific corpus
corpus_name = (
    "projects/{project_id}/locations/{region}/ragCorpora/{corpus_id}"
)
corpus = rag.get_corpus(name=corpus_name)
print(f"Corpus Name: {corpus.name}")
print(f"Display Name: {corpus.display_name}")

3. Retrieving Contexts

To retrieve relevant contexts from a RAG Engine corpus based on a query. If no
contexts come back, that is a valid answer: report it with the corpus and query
you used. If a broader search is reasonable, try it in the same script (for
example a larger similarity_top_k) rather than as a separate command.

import vertexai
from vertexai.preview import rag

vertexai.init(project="{project_id}", location="{region}")

corpus_name = (
    "projects/{project_id}/locations/{region}/ragCorpora/{corpus_id}"
)
query = "What is the speed of light?"

# Retrieve contexts
response = rag.retrieval_query(
    rag_corpora=[corpus_name],
    text=query,
    similarity_top_k=3
)

for context in response.contexts.contexts:
    print(f"Context text: {context.text}")
    print(f"Source: {context.source_uri}")

4. Answering the User with Retrieved Context

To use the retrieved context alongside an Agent Platform model to generate a
grounded response:

from google import genai
from google.genai import types

client = genai.Client(enterprise=True, project="{project_id}", location="{region}")
corpus_name = (
    "projects/{project_id}/locations/{region}/ragCorpora/{corpus_id}"
)

# Define the Agent Platform RAG Engine tool pointing to the corpus
rag_tool = types.Tool(
    retrieval=types.Retrieval(
        vertex_rag_store=types.VertexRagStore(
            rag_resources=[types.VertexRagStoreRagResource(rag_corpus=corpus_name)],
            rag_retrieval_config=types.RagRetrievalConfig(
                top_k=3,
                filter=types.RagRetrievalConfigFilter(
                    vector_similarity_threshold=0.5,
                ),
            ),
        )
    )
)

# Generate content using the RAG Engine tool
response = client.models.generate_content(
    model="gemini-2.5-flash",
    contents="What is the speed of light?",
    config=types.GenerateContentConfig(
        tools=[rag_tool]
    )
)
print(response.text)

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