Accelerated Innovation

Searching & Retrieving Your GenAI Data

A Deep Dive into Self-Querying
(Multi-Step Approaches)

Workshop
Can your agents decide when to search—and do so safely, efficiently, and with measurable value?

Self-querying allows LLM agents to initiate their own searches, but without clear triggers, controls, and evaluation, self-directed retrieval can quickly become expensive, opaque, and risky. 

To win, your self-querying agents must know when to search, stay within guardrails, and justify their cost. 

The Challenge

Teams enabling self-querying often struggle with: 

  • Uncontrolled triggers: Agents query too often—or not at all—without clear conditions or intent. 
  • Opaque behavior: Limited visibility into why agents searched, what they retrieved, and how results were used. 
  • Unproven value: Difficulty measuring accuracy, cost, and return on investment from self-directed retrieval. 

Unmanaged self-querying increases cost, reduces predictability, and undermines trust in agent behavior. 

Our Solution

In this hands-on workshop, your team designs self-querying approaches that balance autonomy, control, observability, and ROI. 

  • Enable self-querying capabilities for LLM agents in retrieval workflows. 
  • Determine explicit trigger conditions that justify when agents should query. 
  • Monitor self-directed search behavior to improve transparency and control. 
  • Constrain and steer agent autonomy using rules, limits, and feedback. 
  • Evaluate self-query accuracy and return on investment to support production decisions. 
Area of Focus
  • Enabling Self-Querying for LLM Agents 
  • Determining Trigger Conditions for Querying 
  • Monitoring Self-Directed Search Behavior 
  • Constraining and Steering Agent Autonomy 
  • Evaluating Self-Query Accuracy and ROI 
Participants Will
  • Enable agents to initiate retrieval only when it adds clear value. 
  • Define trigger conditions that govern self-directed querying behavior. 
  • Monitor and analyze how and why agents perform searches. 
  • Apply constraints that balance agent autonomy with operational safety. 
  • Evaluate self-querying systems based on accuracy, cost, and ROI. 

Who Should Attend:

Solution ArchitectsPlatform EngineersBackend EngineersGenAI EngineersSearch Engineers

Solution Essentials

Format

Virtual or in-person 

Duration

4 hours 

Skill Level

Advanced; experience with agents or retrieval systems recommended 

Tools

LLM agents, self-querying patterns, monitoring and evaluation frameworks 

Do your agents know when a search is actually worth running?