Considering RAG for your Agent? Build this instead. (opens in new tab)

Key Takeaways Most SaaS AI agents don't need a vector database — file-based memory plus 1M-token context windows plus tool calls handle the typical case Anthropic's official "key primitive for just-in-time context retrieval" is filesystem-based, not vector-based Claude Code's pattern — an index file (MEMORY.md) plus per-topic markdown files loaded on demand — works for production SaaS agents too RAG still wins for large unstructured corpora, regulated multi-tenant data, and frequently-refresh...