diff --git a/app/api/ai/route.ts b/app/api/ai/route.ts
index 955ec14..1f6feca 100644
--- a/app/api/ai/route.ts
+++ b/app/api/ai/route.ts
@@ -54,7 +54,9 @@ export async function POST(req: Request) {
   }
   const question = (body.question ?? "").trim().slice(0, 4000);
   if (!question) return new Response("Empty question", { status: 400 });
-  const context = body.context?.slice(0, 8000);
+  // Retrieved grounding context (current page + top docs) — larger than the old
+  // section-name hint, so allow more headroom.
+  const context = body.context?.slice(0, 16000);
   // Accept up to 4 inline image data URLs (~base64). Drop anything else.
   const images = Array.isArray(body.images)
     ? body.images.filter((u) => typeof u === "string" && /^data:image\//.test(u)).slice(0, 4)
diff --git a/components/docs/ai/ask-dock.tsx b/components/docs/ai/ask-dock.tsx
index b702422..2f8b5f8 100644
--- a/components/docs/ai/ask-dock.tsx
+++ b/components/docs/ai/ask-dock.tsx
@@ -233,8 +233,13 @@ export function AskDock({ ai }: { ai: AiPublicConfig }) {
   }
 
   async function callAi(question: string, images?: string[]): Promise<{ text: string; sources: string[] }> {
-    const sources = pickSources();
     const imgs = ai.vision && images?.length ? images : undefined;
+    // Real retrieval: ground the answer in the current page + the most relevant
+    // docs for the question (from llms-full.txt). `sources` are the pages used.
+    const { buildGroundingContext } = await import("@/lib/ai/retrieval");
+    const basePath = process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_MARKLINE_BASE_PATH || "";
+    const { context: grounded, sources } = await buildGroundingContext(question, { basePath, sectionHint: context });
+
     if (ai.mode === "byok") {
       let key = "";
       try {
@@ -254,7 +259,7 @@ export function AskDock({ ai }: { ai: AiPublicConfig }) {
         key,
         provider: ai.provider,
         maxTokens: ai.maxTokens,
-        messages: buildMessages(undefined, `You are viewing the "${context}" section.`, question, imgs),
+        messages: buildMessages(undefined, grounded, question, imgs),
         referer: location.origin,
         title: document.title,
       });
@@ -264,7 +269,7 @@ export function AskDock({ ai }: { ai: AiPublicConfig }) {
     const res = await fetch(ai.endpoint || "/api/ai", {
       method: "POST",
       headers: { "content-type": "application/json" },
-      body: JSON.stringify({ question, context: `The user is viewing the "${context}" section.`, images: imgs }),
+      body: JSON.stringify({ question, context: grounded, images: imgs }),
     });
     if (!res.ok) throw new Error((await res.text().catch(() => "")) || `Request failed (${res.status})`);
     const data = await res.json();
@@ -332,11 +337,6 @@ export function AskDock({ ai }: { ai: AiPublicConfig }) {
     if (last) submit(last.text);
   }
 
-  function pickSources(): string[] {
-    const all = [`API Reference — ${context}`, "Authentication", "The object model", "Errors", "Guides"];
-    return all.slice(0, 3);
-  }
-
   const title = chats[cur]?.title || "New chat";
 
   return (
diff --git a/lib/ai/retrieval.ts b/lib/ai/retrieval.ts
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..38597de
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/ai/retrieval.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,147 @@
+/**
+ * Client-side documentation retrieval for Ask AI.
+ *
+ * The model was previously handed only a section-name string ("you are viewing
+ * the X section") and never any real page text, so it couldn't answer. This
+ * grounds answers in actual docs:
+ *   1. the full text of the page the reader is on (read from the DOM), and
+ *   2. the most relevant pages for the question, ranked from the build-time
+ *      `llms-full.txt` corpus with a lightweight BM25-style score.
+ *
+ * Pure client-side (one cached fetch of /llms-full.txt) — no server, no
+ * embeddings — so it works in BYOK mode and on pure-static hosting. If
+ * llms-full.txt is missing (older build), retrieval degrades to current-page
+ * context only.
+ */
+
+export type DocSection = { title: string; body: string };
+export type Retrieved = DocSection & { score: number };
+
+const STOP = new Set(
+  "the a an of to in is are and or for on with your you it this that be as at by from into how do does can will not what when which".split(" "),
+);
+
+/** Light stemmer: collapses common inflections so a query for "create a
+ *  service" matches a page titled "Services" (plural) or text about "creating".
+ *  Not linguistically perfect — it only needs query and docs to stem alike. */
+function stem(w: string): string {
+  if (w.length <= 3) return w;
+  if (w.endsWith("ing") && w.length > 5) w = w.slice(0, -3);
+  else if (w.endsWith("ed") && w.length > 4) w = w.slice(0, -2);
+  else if (w.endsWith("s") && !w.endsWith("ss")) w = w.slice(0, -1);
+  if (w.endsWith("e") && w.length > 3) w = w.slice(0, -1);
+  return w;
+}
+
+function tokenize(s: string): string[] {
+  return (s.toLowerCase().match(/[a-z0-9]+/g) ?? [])
+    .filter((w) => w.length > 2 && !STOP.has(w))
+    .map(stem);
+}
+
+let corpusPromise: Promise<DocSection[]> | null = null;
+
+/** Fetch + parse /llms-full.txt once; cached for the session. */
+export function loadDocsCorpus(basePath = ""): Promise<DocSection[]> {
+  if (!corpusPromise) {
+    corpusPromise = (async () => {
+      try {
+        const res = await fetch(`${basePath}/llms-full.txt`, { cache: "force-cache" });
+        if (!res.ok) return [];
+        return parseLlmsFull(await res.text());
+      } catch {
+        return [];
+      }
+    })();
+  }
+  return corpusPromise;
+}
+
+/** Split llms-full.txt into per-page sections. Pages are separated by a `---`
+ *  rule and start with a `# Title` heading (see scripts/build-search.mjs). */
+export function parseLlmsFull(text: string): DocSection[] {
+  const out: DocSection[] = [];
+  for (const part of text.split(/\n-{3,}\n/)) {
+    const m = part.match(/^\s*#\s+(.+?)\s*\n([\s\S]*)$/);
+    if (!m) continue;
+    const title = m[1].trim();
+    const body = m[2].trim();
+    if (title && body) out.push({ title, body });
+  }
+  return out;
+}
+
+/** Rank corpus sections against the question (saturating tf · idf, title-boosted). */
+export function retrieve(question: string, corpus: DocSection[], k = 3): Retrieved[] {
+  const qTerms = tokenize(question);
+  if (!qTerms.length || !corpus.length) return [];
+
+  const df = new Map<string, number>();
+  const docTokens = corpus.map((d) => {
+    const toks = tokenize(`${d.title} ${d.body}`);
+    for (const t of new Set(toks)) df.set(t, (df.get(t) ?? 0) + 1);
+    return toks;
+  });
+  const N = corpus.length;
+
+  const scored: Retrieved[] = corpus.map((d, i) => {
+    const tf = new Map<string, number>();
+    for (const t of docTokens[i]) tf.set(t, (tf.get(t) ?? 0) + 1);
+    const titleToks = new Set(tokenize(d.title));
+    let score = 0;
+    for (const q of qTerms) {
+      const f = tf.get(q) ?? 0;
+      if (!f) continue;
+      const idf = Math.log(1 + N / ((df.get(q) ?? 0) + 0.5));
+      score += idf * (f / (f + 1.5)); // saturating term frequency
+      if (titleToks.has(q)) score += idf * 0.9; // boost title matches
+    }
+    return { ...d, score };
+  });
+
+  return scored.filter((s) => s.score > 0).sort((a, b) => b.score - a.score).slice(0, k);
+}
+
+/** Read the current page's title + visible prose from the DOM (docs or apiref). */
+export function currentPageText(maxChars = 6000): { title: string; text: string } | null {
+  if (typeof document === "undefined") return null;
+  const title = document.querySelector("h1")?.textContent?.trim() || document.title || "This page";
+  const main = document.querySelector(".docs-prose, .api-doc, main");
+  if (!main) return null;
+  const text = (main.textContent || "").replace(/\s+/g, " ").trim().slice(0, maxChars);
+  return text ? { title, text } : null;
+}
+
+/**
+ * Assemble grounding context for a question: the current page first, then the
+ * top retrieved pages (deduped). Returns the context string (capped) plus the
+ * list of source titles actually used (for the "Used N sources" UI).
+ */
+export async function buildGroundingContext(
+  question: string,
+  opts: { basePath?: string; sectionHint?: string; maxChars?: number; k?: number } = {},
+): Promise<{ context: string; sources: string[] }> {
+  const { basePath = "", sectionHint, maxChars = 14000, k = 3 } = opts;
+  const corpus = await loadDocsCorpus(basePath);
+  const top = retrieve(question, corpus, k);
+  const cur = currentPageText();
+
+  const blocks: string[] = [];
+  const sources: string[] = [];
+
+  if (cur) {
+    blocks.push(`# Current page: ${cur.title}\n\n${cur.text}`);
+    sources.push(cur.title);
+  }
+  for (const t of top) {
+    if (cur && t.title.toLowerCase() === cur.title.toLowerCase()) continue; // already included
+    blocks.push(`# ${t.title}\n\n${t.body}`);
+    if (!sources.includes(t.title)) sources.push(t.title);
+  }
+
+  let context = blocks.join("\n\n---\n\n");
+  if (sectionHint && !cur) context = `The reader is on the "${sectionHint}" page.\n\n${context}`;
+  if (context.length > maxChars) context = context.slice(0, maxChars) + "\n\n[context truncated]";
+
+  return { context, sources: sources.slice(0, 4) };
+}