Skip to content

Customization map

This page explains Customization map and how it fits into the RecSys suite.

Who this is for

  • Developers, recsys engineers, and stakeholders who need to understand what can be changed where.

What you will get

  • A practical “lever map” (config/rules/data/code) that reduces page hunting
  • Links to the canonical pages for each lever

The four customization layers

Layer 1: Tenant config (fast, safe)

What you can change:

  • Signal weights and blending knobs
  • Limits (max K, exclude sizes)
  • Feature flags that gate behaviors

Where:

When to use:

  • Tuning and controlled rollout of a known behavior

Layer 2: Merchandising rules (fast, explicit)

What you can change:

  • Pin / boost / block and other constraints
  • Surface-specific policies

Where:

When to use:

  • Business constraints, promotions, and safety guardrails

Layer 3: Data / signals (medium, production-like)

What you can change:

  • Candidate signals such as popularity/co-occurrence, plus new signals
  • Artifact freshness and validation rules

Where:

When to use:

  • Improving ranking by improving candidate sources or signal quality

Layer 4: Ranking logic (high leverage, requires evaluation)

What you can change:

  • Candidate merge, scoring, tie-break policies
  • Explain payload fields and deterministic constraints

Where:

When to use:

  • Structural ranking improvements after you have evaluation gates in place

“If I want X, which layer is it?”

  • “I want to pin items for a campaign” → Layer 2
  • “I want to increase diversity” → Layer 1 or 4 (depending on the lever)
  • “I want better candidates for cold start” → Layer 3
  • “I want a new scoring feature” → Layer 4