Recency Boost
Rank recently stored documents higher with RecencyReranker and PgVector row timestamps.
RecencyReranker blends each result's relevance with its age. PgVector is built with return_updated_at=True, so each result carries the time its row was stored. Re-inserting a policy under the same name makes it the freshest document.
"""
Recency Boost: Surfacing Recently Updated Documents
===================================================
Vector search has no notion of time, so a superseded document ranks as well as the
revision that replaced it. RecencyReranker blends the search score with an exponential
decay on a timestamp, so an older document has to be clearly more relevant to outrank
a newer one.
It is a tilt, not a sort by date:
- weight=0.0 ranks by relevance alone
- weight=0.3 (the default) lets freshness break near-ties
- weight=1.0 ranks by age alone
half_life_days sets how fast the boost fades. This example uses a very short one so a
few seconds of age separate the documents; a real corpus wants days or weeks.
Set your own date under updated_at when adding content, and it is used first. Failing
that, PgVector built with return_updated_at=True reports when each row was stored, so
a document counts as fresh from when it entered the store and re-ingesting it under the
same name makes it fresh again. Stores reporting no timestamp leave ordering untouched.
Setup:
./cookbook/scripts/run_pgvector.sh
See also: 08_mmr_diverse_results.py for diversity reranking.
"""
import asyncio
from agno.agent import Agent
from agno.knowledge.embedder.openai import OpenAIEmbedder
from agno.knowledge.knowledge import Knowledge
from agno.knowledge.reranker.recency import RecencyReranker
from agno.knowledge.utils import STORE_RECENCY_METADATA_KEY
from agno.models.openai import OpenAIResponses
from agno.vectordb.pgvector import PgVector
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Setup
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
db_url = "postgresql+psycopg://ai:ai@localhost:5532/ai"
vector_db = PgVector(
table_name="recency_demo",
db_url=db_url,
embedder=OpenAIEmbedder(id="text-embedding-3-small"),
# Report when each row was stored, so documents with no timestamp of their own still
# have one to decay on. Off by default: it travels in metadata the model can see.
return_updated_at=True,
)
# Start clean, so re-running does not stack copies from a previous run.
if vector_db.exists():
vector_db.drop()
vector_db.create()
knowledge = Knowledge(
vector_db=vector_db,
reranker=RecencyReranker(
# Seconds rather than days, so this example separates documents stored moments
# apart. Use days or weeks against a real corpus.
half_life_days=0.0001,
# Recency against relevance: 0.0 is relevance alone, 1.0 age alone.
weight=0.5,
),
)
agent = Agent(
model=OpenAIResponses(id="gpt-5.6-luna"),
knowledge=knowledge,
markdown=True,
)
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Run Demo
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLICIES = [
("expenses-2019", "Expense policy: the daily limit is 50 USD. Approval by email."),
(
"expenses-2023",
"Expense policy: the daily limit is 75 USD. Approval in the portal.",
),
(
"travel-2024",
"Travel policy: book flights through the agency, economy class only.",
),
]
QUERY = "What is the daily expense limit?"
def show(label: str, results) -> None:
print(label)
for document in results:
meta = document.meta_data or {}
# The user's own date if it has one, else the row timestamp PgVector reports.
stored = str(
meta.get("updated_at") or meta.get(STORE_RECENCY_METADATA_KEY, "unknown")
)[11:19]
snippet = " ".join(document.content.split())[:58]
print(f" [{stored}] {document.name}: {snippet}...")
print()
if __name__ == "__main__":
async def main():
for name, text in POLICIES:
await knowledge.ainsert(text_content=text, name=name)
await asyncio.sleep(1)
plain = Knowledge(vector_db=vector_db)
print("\n" + "=" * 64)
print("PgVector + recency boost")
print("=" * 64 + "\n")
show("Relevance only", await plain.asearch(QUERY, max_results=3))
show("With recency, as stored", await knowledge.asearch(QUERY, max_results=3))
# The 2019 policy is revised. Re-ingesting under the same name replaces the stored
# row rather than adding a second one, and the replacement is stored now, so the
# revised policy becomes the freshest document.
await asyncio.sleep(1)
await knowledge.ainsert(
text_content="Expense policy: the daily limit is 120 USD. Approval in the mobile app.",
name="expenses-2019",
)
show(
"After revising the 2019 policy",
await knowledge.asearch(QUERY, max_results=3),
)
await agent.aprint_response(QUERY, stream=True)
asyncio.run(main())What Happens
The example prints three rankings for the same query:
- Relevance only: a plain
Knowledgeover the same table, without a reranker. - With recency, as stored: the three policies were inserted one second apart.
half_life_days=0.0001is about 8.6 seconds, so a one-second age difference changes the scores. - After revising the 2019 policy: re-inserting
expenses-2019replaces its row, so it becomes the newest document.
Use a half-life in days or weeks for a real corpus. To use your own document dates instead of row timestamps, set updated_at in the metadata when inserting content. See Boost Recent Documents.
Run the Example
Set up your virtual environment
uv venv --python 3.12
source .venv/bin/activateInstall dependencies
uv pip install -U agno openai pgvector "psycopg[binary]" sqlalchemyExport your OpenAI API key
export OPENAI_API_KEY="your_openai_api_key_here"Run PgVector
docker run -d \
-e POSTGRES_DB=ai \
-e POSTGRES_USER=ai \
-e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=ai \
-e PGDATA=/var/lib/postgresql \
-v pgvolume:/var/lib/postgresql \
-p 5532:5432 \
--name pgvector \
agnohq/pgvector:18Run the example
Save the code above as recency_boost.py, then run:
python recency_boost.pyFull source: cookbook/07_knowledge/02_building_blocks/11_recency_boost.py