Chunking Strategies

Fixed-size, semantic, and hierarchical chunking — what works for different document types and query patterns.

What You Will Learn

• Fixed-size chunking: simple, predictable, loses semantic boundaries
• Semantic chunking: split on paragraphs, sections, or meaning shifts
• Hierarchical chunking: small chunks with parent-doc context attached
• Overlap: why adding chunk overlap improves retrieval recall
• Choosing chunk size: 256 vs 512 vs 1024 tokens — tradeoffs