Embedding Strategies

Guide to selecting and optimizing embedding models for vector search applications.

When to Use This Skill

• Choosing embedding models for RAG
• Optimizing chunking strategies
• Fine-tuning embeddings for domains
• Comparing embedding model performance
• Reducing embedding dimensions
• Handling multilingual content

Core Concepts

1. Embedding Model Comparison (2026)

| Model | Dimensions | Max Tokens | Best For | | -------------------------- | ---------- | ---------- | ----------------------------------- | | voyage-3-large | 1024 | 32000 | Claude apps (Anthropic recommended) | | voyage-3 | 1024 | 32000 | Claude apps, cost-effective | | voyage-code-3 | 1024 | 32000 | Code search | | voyage-finance-2 | 1024 | 32000 | Financial documents | | voyage-law-2 | 1024 | 32000 | Legal documents | | text-embedding-3-large | 3072 | 8191 | OpenAI apps, high accuracy | | text-embedding-3-small | 1536 | 8191 | OpenAI apps, cost-effective | | bge-large-en-v1.5 | 1024 | 512 | Open source, local deployment | | all-MiniLM-L6-v2 | 384 | 256 | Fast, lightweight | | multilingual-e5-large | 1024 | 512 | Multi-language |

2. Embedding Pipeline

Document → Chunking → Preprocessing → Embedding Model → Vector
                ↓
        [Overlap, Size]  [Clean, Normalize]  [API/Local]

Templates and detailed worked examples

Full template library and detailed worked examples live in references/details.md. Read that file when you need the concrete templates.

Best Practices

Do's

• Match model to use case: Code vs prose vs multilingual
• Chunk thoughtfully: Preserve semantic boundaries
• Normalize embeddings: For cosine similarity search
• Batch requests: More efficient than one-by-one
• Cache embeddings: Avoid recomputing for static content
• Use Voyage AI for Claude apps: Recommended by Anthropic

Don'ts

• Don't ignore token limits: Truncation loses information
• Don't mix embedding models: Incompatible vector spaces
• Don't skip preprocessing: Garbage in, garbage out
• Don't over-chunk: Lose important context
• Don't forget metadata: Essential for filtering and debugging