From de6da8b37599ac44fa7930f557f0355a44728b31 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Yiorgis Gozadinos <ggozadinos@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 2026 16:01:28 +0300
Subject: [PATCH] Pin what reciprocal rank fusion produces

`_fuse` ran in tests without anything asserting its output, so reversing the
sort or dropping the truncation changed nothing. Databases interleave by rank,
the score is the reciprocal of it, ties keep configured order, and the limit
cuts the fused list.

Every native score in one database beats every one in the other, so ranking by
score rather than position fails all four.
---
 tests/multi_db/test_search.py | 75 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-
 1 file changed, 74 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/tests/multi_db/test_search.py b/tests/multi_db/test_search.py
index b0b3aa0e..d56144c8 100644
--- a/tests/multi_db/test_search.py
+++ b/tests/multi_db/test_search.py
@@ -381,6 +381,79 @@ class TestNarrowingToOneDatabase:
         assert results == []
 
 
+class TestReciprocalRankFusion:
+    """Without a reranker, scores from separate indexes are not comparable, so
+    fusion ranks by position. These pin what that produces."""
+
+    @staticmethod
+    def _ranked(source: str, count: int, top: float) -> list[tuple[Chunk, float]]:
+        return [
+            (Chunk(id=f"{source}{i}", content=f"{source} {i}"), top - i / 100)
+            for i in range(count)
+        ]
+
+    def _lopsided(self, count: int) -> list[list[tuple[Chunk, float]]]:
+        """Every native score in the first database beats every one in the
+        second, so anything ranking by score rather than position puts all of
+        one before any of the other."""
+        return [self._ranked("a", count, 0.9), self._ranked("b", count, 0.2)]
+
+    async def _fuse_over(self, tmp_path, per_source, limit):
+        from haiku.rag.client.search import _fuse
+
+        config = _config(tmp_path, ["alpha", "beta"])
+        await _seed(config, "alpha", ["alpha one"])
+        await _seed(config, "beta", ["beta one"])
+        async with HaikuRAG(config=config) as rag:
+            assert rag.reranker is None
+            clients = await rag.clients_for(["alpha", "beta"])
+            fused = await _fuse(rag, clients, "cats", per_source, limit)
+        return [(owner.source, chunk.id, score) for owner, chunk, score in fused]
+
+    @pytest.mark.asyncio
+    async def test_databases_interleave_by_rank(self, tmp_path):
+        """Each contributes its rank-1 before either contributes its rank-2."""
+        fused = await self._fuse_over(tmp_path, self._lopsided(3), 10)
+
+        assert [(source, cid) for source, cid, _ in fused] == [
+            ("alpha", "a0"),
+            ("beta", "b0"),
+            ("alpha", "a1"),
+            ("beta", "b1"),
+            ("alpha", "a2"),
+            ("beta", "b2"),
+        ]
+
+    @pytest.mark.asyncio
+    async def test_the_score_is_the_reciprocal_of_the_rank(self, tmp_path):
+        fused = await self._fuse_over(tmp_path, self._lopsided(2), 10)
+
+        assert [score for _, _, score in fused] == [
+            1 / 61,
+            1 / 61,
+            1 / 62,
+            1 / 62,
+        ]
+
+    @pytest.mark.asyncio
+    async def test_equal_scores_keep_the_configured_order(self, tmp_path):
+        """Every rank ties across databases, so the tiebreak decides all of it."""
+        fused = await self._fuse_over(tmp_path, self._lopsided(2), 10)
+
+        assert [source for source, _, _ in fused] == ["alpha", "beta", "alpha", "beta"]
+
+    @pytest.mark.asyncio
+    async def test_the_limit_cuts_the_fused_list(self, tmp_path):
+        """Each database was asked for enough to fill the window on its own."""
+        fused = await self._fuse_over(tmp_path, self._lopsided(5), 3)
+
+        assert [(source, cid) for source, cid, _ in fused] == [
+            ("alpha", "a0"),
+            ("beta", "b0"),
+            ("alpha", "a1"),
+        ]
+
+
 class TestFusingWhatARerankerReturns:
     @pytest.mark.asyncio
     async def test_a_reranker_returning_copies_is_named(self, tmp_path):
@@ -399,7 +472,7 @@ class TestFusingWhatARerankerReturns:
 
         async with HaikuRAG(config=config) as rag:
             clients = await rag.clients_for(["alpha", "beta"])
-            rag.__dict__["reranker"] = Rebuilds()
+            rag.__dict__["_own_reranker"] = Rebuilds()
             per_source = [
                 await c.chunk_repository.search("cats", 5, "fts") for c in clients
             ]