diff --git a/docs/changelog/115399.yaml b/docs/changelog/115399.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..9f69657a5d16
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/changelog/115399.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+pr: 115399
+summary: Adding breaking change entry for retrievers
+area: Search
+type: breaking
+issues: []
+breaking:
+  title: Reworking RRF retriever to be evaluated during rewrite phase
+  area: REST API
+  details: |-
+    In this release (8.16), we have introduced major changes to the retrievers framework 
+    and how they can be evaluated, focusing mainly on compound retrievers 
+    like `rrf` and `text_similarity_reranker`, which allowed us to support full 
+    composability (i.e. any retriever can be nested under any compound retriever), 
+    as well as supporting additional search features like collapsing, explaining, 
+    aggregations, and highlighting.
+    
+    To ensure consistency, and given that this rework is not available until 8.16, 
+    `rrf` and `text_similarity_reranker`  retriever queries would now  
+    throw an exception in a mixed cluster scenario, where there are nodes 
+    both in current or later (i.e. >= 8.16) and previous ( <= 8.15) versions.
+    
+    As part of the rework, we have also removed the `_rank` property from 
+    the responses of an `rrf` retriever.
+  impact: |-
+    - Users will not be able to use the `rrf` and `text_similarity_reranker` retrievers in a mixed cluster scenario
+    with previous releases (i.e. prior to 8.16), and the request will throw an `IllegalArgumentException`.
+    - `_rank` has now been removed from the output of the `rrf` retrievers so trying to directly parse the field
+    will throw an exception
+  notable: false
diff --git a/x-pack/plugin/inference/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/inference/rank/textsimilarity/TextSimilarityRankRetrieverBuilder.java b/x-pack/plugin/inference/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/inference/rank/textsimilarity/TextSimilarityRankRetrieverBuilder.java
index 342199dc51db..91b6cdc61afe 100644
--- a/x-pack/plugin/inference/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/inference/rank/textsimilarity/TextSimilarityRankRetrieverBuilder.java
+++ b/x-pack/plugin/inference/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/inference/rank/textsimilarity/TextSimilarityRankRetrieverBuilder.java
@@ -81,7 +81,7 @@ public class TextSimilarityRankRetrieverBuilder extends CompoundRetrieverBuilder
             throw new ParsingException(parser.getTokenLocation(), "unknown retriever [" + TextSimilarityRankBuilder.NAME + "]");
         }
         if (context.clusterSupportsFeature(TEXT_SIMILARITY_RERANKER_COMPOSITION_SUPPORTED) == false) {
-            throw new UnsupportedOperationException(
+            throw new IllegalArgumentException(
                 "[text_similarity_reranker] retriever composition feature is not supported by all nodes in the cluster"
             );
         }
diff --git a/x-pack/plugin/rank-rrf/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/rank/rrf/RRFRetrieverBuilder.java b/x-pack/plugin/rank-rrf/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/rank/rrf/RRFRetrieverBuilder.java
index c3c9f19cde6e..792ff4eac389 100644
--- a/x-pack/plugin/rank-rrf/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/rank/rrf/RRFRetrieverBuilder.java
+++ b/x-pack/plugin/rank-rrf/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/rank/rrf/RRFRetrieverBuilder.java
@@ -83,7 +83,7 @@ public final class RRFRetrieverBuilder extends CompoundRetrieverBuilder<RRFRetri
             throw new ParsingException(parser.getTokenLocation(), "unknown retriever [" + NAME + "]");
         }
         if (context.clusterSupportsFeature(RRF_RETRIEVER_COMPOSITION_SUPPORTED) == false) {
-            throw new UnsupportedOperationException("[rrf] retriever composition feature is not supported by all nodes in the cluster");
+            throw new IllegalArgumentException("[rrf] retriever composition feature is not supported by all nodes in the cluster");
         }
         if (RRFRankPlugin.RANK_RRF_FEATURE.check(XPackPlugin.getSharedLicenseState()) == false) {
             throw LicenseUtils.newComplianceException("Reciprocal Rank Fusion (RRF)");