# GRAG: Graph Retrieval-Augmented Generation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.16506 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.16506/

## Key facts

- Cited by 78 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Knowledge-graph and structured-knowledge RAG, one of 15 directions in Retrieval-augmented generation.
- Builds on 42 of its 63 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 26 May 2024.

## Placed in

- Retrieval-augmented generation / [Knowledge-graph and structured-knowledge RAG](https://mlsanity.com/rag/knowledge-graph-and-structured-knowledge-rag/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 42)

- [LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.09685/) (2021)
- [Llama 2: Open Foundation and Fine-Tuned Chat Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.09288/) (2023)
- [Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Knowledge-Intensive NLP Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.11401/) (2020)
- [Sentence-BERT: Sentence Embeddings using Siamese BERT-Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.10084/) (2019)
- [Graph Attention Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.10903/) (2017)
- [The Power of Scale for Parameter-Efficient Prompt Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.08691/) (2021)
- [Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Large Language Models: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.10997/) (2023)
- [REALM: Retrieval-Augmented Language Model Pre-Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.08909/) (2020)
- [From Local to Global: A Graph RAG Approach to Query-Focused Summarization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.16130/) (2024)
- [FActScore: Fine-grained Atomic Evaluation of Factual Precision in Long Form Text Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.14251/) (2023)
- [Text Embeddings by Weakly-Supervised Contrastive Pre-training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.03533/) (2022)
- [Unsupervised Dense Information Retrieval with Contrastive Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.09118/) (2021)
- [When Not to Trust Language Models: Investigating Effectiveness of Parametric and Non-Parametric Memories](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.10511/) (2022)
- [In-Context Retrieval-Augmented Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.00083/) (2023)
- [Language-agnostic BERT Sentence Embedding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.01852/) (2020)
- [QA-GNN: Reasoning with Language Models and Knowledge Graphs for Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.06378/) (2021)
- [StructGPT: A General Framework for Large Language Model to Reason over Structured Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.09645/) (2023)
- [Reasoning on Graphs: Faithful and Interpretable Large Language Model Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.01061/) (2023)
- [Teaching language models to support answers with verified quotes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.11147/) (2022)
- [Exploring the Potential of Large Language Models (LLMs) in Learning on Graphs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.03393/) (2023)
- [MultiHop-RAG: Benchmarking Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Multi-Hop Queries](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.15391/) (2024)
- [Can Language Models Solve Graph Problems in Natural Language?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.10037/) (2023)
- [G-Retriever: Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Textual Graph Understanding and Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.07630/) (2024)
- [Large Language Models on Graphs: A Comprehensive Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02783/) (2023)
- [Talk like a Graph: Encoding Graphs for Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.04560/) (2023)
- [Do Large Language Models Latently Perform Multi-Hop Reasoning?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.16837/) (2024)
- [Harnessing Explanations: LLM-to-LM Interpreter for Enhanced Text-Attributed Graph Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.19523/) (2023)
- [Knowledge-Augmented Language Model Prompting for Zero-Shot Knowledge Graph Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.04136/) (2023)
- [A Survey of Graph Meets Large Language Model: Progress and Future Directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.12399/) (2023)
- [Label-free Node Classification on Graphs with Large Language Models (LLMS)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.04668/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 78)

- [RepoGraph: Enhancing AI Software Engineering with Repository-level Code Graph](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.14684/) (2024)
- [A Survey of Graph Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Customized Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.13958/) (2025)
- [Simple Is Effective: The Roles of Graphs and Large Language Models in Knowledge-Graph-Based Retrieval-Augmented Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.20724/) (2024)
- [When to use Graphs in RAG: A Comprehensive Analysis for Graph Retrieval-Augmented Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.05690/) (2025)
- [Retrieval-Augmented Generation with Hierarchical Knowledge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.10150/) (2025)
- [Graphs Meet AI Agents: Taxonomy, Progress, and Future Opportunities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.18019/) (2025)
- [Graph RAG-Tool Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.07223/) (2025)
- [EraRAG: Efficient and Incremental Retrieval Augmented Generation for Growing Corpora](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.20963/) (2025)
- [CRAKEN: Cybersecurity LLM Agent with Knowledge-Based Execution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.17107/) (2025)
- [Towards LifeSpan Cognitive Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.13265/) (2024)
- [Knowledge Graph-based Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Schema Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.08686/) (2025)
- [VistaWise: Building Cost-Effective Agent with Cross-Modal Knowledge Graph for Minecraft](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.18722/) (2025)
- [Diagnosing and Addressing Pitfalls in KG-RAG Datasets: Toward More Reliable Benchmarking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.23495/) (2025)
- [Align-GRAG: Anchor and Rationale Guided Dual Alignment for Graph Retrieval-Augmented Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.16237/) (2025)
- [Multi-agent systems for chemical engineering: A review and perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.07880/) (2025)
- [Graph-Augmented Reasoning: Evolving Step-by-Step Knowledge Graph Retrieval for LLM Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.01642/) (2025)
- [AGRAG: Advanced Graph-based Retrieval-Augmented Generation for LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.05549/) (2025)
- [ModiGen: A Large Language Model-Based Workflow for Multi-Task Modelica Code Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.18460/) (2025)
- [BioMol-MQA: A Multi-Modal Question Answering Dataset For LLM Reasoning Over Bio-Molecular Interactions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.05766/) (2025)
- [Agent-as-a-Graph: Knowledge Graph-Based Tool and Agent Retrieval for LLM Multi-Agent Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.18194/) (2025)
- [Towards Automated Patent Workflows: AI-Orchestrated Multi-Agent Framework for Intellectual Property Management and Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.19006/) (2024)
- [Schema Generation for Large Knowledge Graphs Using Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.04512/) (2025)
- [URAG: Implementing a Unified Hybrid RAG for Precise Answers in University Admission Chatbots -- A Case Study at HCMUT](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.16276/) (2025)
- [Scaling Natural-Language Graph-Based Test Time Compute for Automated Theorem Proving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.11657/) (2025)
- [Distributed Retrieval-Augmented Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.00443/) (2025)
- [KAQG: A Knowledge-Graph-Enhanced RAG for Difficulty-Controlled Question Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.07618/) (2025)
- [Divide by Question, Conquer by Agent: SPLIT-RAG with Question-Driven Graph Partitioning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.13994/) (2025)
- [PersonalAI: A Systematic Comparison of Knowledge Graph Storage and Retrieval Approaches for Personalized LLM agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.17001/) (2025)
- [Towards Open-World Retrieval-Augmented Generation on Knowledge Graph: A Multi-Agent Collaboration Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.01238/) (2025)
- [TERAG: Token-Efficient Graph-Based Retrieval-Augmented Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.18667/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Naive Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) focuses on individual documents during retrieval and, as a result, falls short in handling networked documents which are very popular in many applications such as citation graphs, social media, and knowledge graphs. To overcome this limitation, we introduce Graph Retrieval-Augmented Generation (GRAG), which tackles the fundamental challenges in retrieving textual subgraphs and integrating the joint textual and topological information into Large Language Models (LLMs) to enhance its generation. To enable efficient textual subgraph retrieval, we propose a novel divide-and-conquer strategy that retrieves the optimal subgraph structure in linear time. To achieve graph context-aware generation, incorporate textual graphs into LLMs through two complementary views-the text view and the graph view-enabling LLMs to more effectively comprehend and utilize the graph context. Extensive experiments on graph reasoning benchmarks demonstrate that in scenarios requiring multi-hop reasoning on textual graphs, our GRAG approach significantly outperforms current state-of-the-art RAG methods. Our datasets as well as codes of GRAG are available at https://github.com/HuieL/GRAG.