What the documents look like
Convenience-store fresh-food ordering runs on short shelf lives and frequent replenishment, and store staff produce several distinct records across each shift and each day. An order form records a product-and-quantity request that a store has submitted. A loss report records a shrinkage entry that has already occurred. A near-expiry handling sheet records a planned treatment for items approaching their shelf-life limit. A cold-chain temperature record holds observed values from the cold-chain segment. Each material carries a different kind of fact, and the product-data and selection question-answering task asks a narrow question: does one specific source material support one specific draft sentence or handover request. The subject, the object, the state, and the effective scope all have to sit inside the same material for that support to exist.
The category differs from a large-format fresh counter because stores order directly against short shelf lives at high frequency, and the records move at day and shift granularity rather than through a revenue-sharing arrangement. A person drafting an answer or a handover note has to keep the four material types apart instead of treating them as one pool of evidence.
Constraints at the citation tracing step
The knowledge-base search node selects one or more knowledge bases that share the same vector model, and it outputs a citation array whose length may be zero; when the array is empty, the output branch still runs. The retrieved results then pass to the answering stage, where each draft sentence is checked line by line against the cited source text. Semantic recall and the minimum relevance score affect candidate ordering and filtering only. They do not perform permission checks or entity isolation, and a relevance score is not a category, entity, or permission filter.
The same-vector-model condition is a precondition for joint association. The correct action is to verify the identifiers and exclude bases that do not match, not to run cross-model retrieval in order to compare what was missed. Retrieval is not authorization.
Hypothetical paper exercise sample. Source text one: "On 10 March 2026, Store A submitted a fresh-food order form, product: triangle rice ball, quantity: 12, status is pending review." Source text two: "On 10 March 2026, the same store's loss report recorded 2 triangle rice balls, reason: expired." Draft sentence: "Store A's triangle rice ball order has been approved and can be scheduled for delivery." The comparison covers subject (Store A), object (triangle rice ball), state (pending review versus approved), and period (10 March 2026). The material shows only pending review, so the approved state in the draft sentence is not supported and is recorded as pending verification. It is not written as a denial or as a conflict, because the material does not state an approved state at all, and pending review does not show that an operating permission is absent.
Configuration and implementation checks
| Configuration item | Hypothetical starting point for this exercise | Reason and comparison object |
|---|---|---|
| Associated knowledge bases | Select the fresh-food ordering bases | Compare the selected base identifiers against their vector model identifiers and confirm they match; exclude any that do not |
| Search mode | Hybrid retrieval | Compare candidate results against semantic retrieval and full-text retrieval runs |
| Citation limit | 2000 tokens as the hypothetical starting point | Compare the number of cited items against a smaller value; this is not an official default |
| Minimum relevance | 0.5 as the hypothetical starting point | Compare the number of items retained against 0.3; this is not an official default |
| Result reranking | Enabled | Compare candidate order against a run without reranking; a rerank model must be available |
| Question optimization | Disabled | Compare the retrieval terms against an enabled run; reassess for short-question scenarios |
The citation limit is expressed in tokens, the documented unit, not in a guessed item count. Reranking and question optimization are optional paths in the overall retrieval flow; they do not run on every request unless an image input and the relevant model capability exist, or unless a rerank model is available and the setting is enabled. Thinking budget is a reasoning budget and is not the citation token limit.
Three common errors
- Treating a pending-review state as approved. Input: the order form source text above plus the draft sentence. Compare the state field. Observable result: the draft sentence asserts an approval that the material does not record. The correct handling is to record it as pending verification.
- Treating retrieval output as authorized execution. Input: the citation array returned by the search node. Compare whether the array directly triggers delivery scheduling or a database write. Observable result: a candidate citation is handled as an approving action. Retrieval does not constitute authorization, and any business verification, approval, database write, or external synchronization needs its own downstream implementation.
- Forcing association across different vector models. Input: two knowledge-base identifiers. Compare their vector model identifiers. Observable result: joint retrieval is attempted even though the identifiers do not match. The correct handling is to exclude the non-matching base and record the actual observation.
How to verify the setup
- Citation source check. Input: the order form and loss report source texts above, plus the draft sentence. Compare whether subject, object, state, and period are the same across the material and the draft. Observable result that satisfies the condition: the draft sentence uses only content the material states, and the approval claim is recorded as pending verification. The expected outcome is pending verification; no live test is claimed.
- Empty-result continuation check. Input: an explicit paper citation array of []. Compare whether the downstream answering stage continues to run. Observable result that satisfies the condition: the branch runs through without an undefined interruption. This checks the downstream design against a paper input; it does not claim that a fictional rule retrieval will always return an empty array.
- Material currency check. Input: a current-version material and a historical-version material. Compare the version identifiers of the cited entries. Observable result that satisfies the condition: the answer cites the effective version. Whether that version is adopted still requires review against the effective-version record.
Across all three checks, missing evidence stays missing. An offered option is not execution, and a pending request is not approval.