diff --git a/backend/app/rag/graph_retriever.py b/backend/app/rag/graph_retriever.py
index 39841aa1..75ff8051 100644
--- a/backend/app/rag/graph_retriever.py
+++ b/backend/app/rag/graph_retriever.py
@@ -82,9 +82,11 @@ def get_entity_context(
                     key=lambda neighbor: graph[node_id][neighbor].get("weight", 0),
                     reverse=True,
                 )
+                # Hoisted out of the inner loop to cache the string evaluation
+                left = _node_name(graph, node_id)
+                
                 for neighbor_id in neighbors:
                     edge = graph[node_id][neighbor_id]
-                    left = _node_name(graph, node_id)
                     right = _node_name(graph, neighbor_id)
                     key = _relationship_key(left.casefold(), right.casefold())
                     existing = relationships.setdefault(