A typical hybrid query
A user searches for “error E104 after upgrading the billing connector.” The error code needs exact matching; the description benefits from semantic matching. Hybrid search can retrieve candidates from both signals, then apply product version, tenant, and date filters.
Use it when
- Exact terms and descriptive language appear together.
- The corpus includes IDs, names, and free-text descriptions.
- Users search with inconsistent vocabulary.
- False positives and missed relevant documents both cost time.
- You can measure the two retrieval signals separately.
Do not add it by default
Hybrid search adds ranking and tuning work. If a simple full-text search answers the real questions, use the simpler system. Complexity should follow a measured retrieval failure, not a fashionable architecture diagram.