What the documents look like
Multi-store product material and selection Q&A draws on platform merchant back ends, ERP channel prices, brand anti-counterfeit systems, and dealer reports. The working documents include store authorization lists, price control tables, cross-territory complaint forms, and monthly sales reports. These materials update daily or monthly, and that cadence affects how long a cited source can be treated as current for a selection answer. Cross-store authorization and price order are the governing constraints: a product material answer must trace back to a specific store, a specific version, and a specific authorization state, or price structure and dealer relationships become difficult to manage.
A knowledge base search node can associate one or more knowledge bases that share the same vector model, and it outputs citations as an array whose length may be zero. A zero-length citation array still lets the output link run through; it does not mean the workflow errored out and terminated. Retrieval output is handed to the answering stage, where the answer is checked line by line against the cited source text. A similarity score serves ordering and filtering, and it does not carry store authorization or entity isolation duties. Retrieval itself is not authorization, and a form collecting a value is not the same as business verification, approval, a database write, or external synchronization having completed.
Constraints at the citation tracing step
Assume a paper exercise sample. A brand e-commerce lead holds a Store Authorization List (March 2025 version) stating: "Store A: authorized to sell the A series, authorization period 1 January 2025 to 31 December 2025; Store B: authorized to sell the B series, without authorization for the A series." A Price Control Table states a retail price floor of 199 for the A series at Store A, and does not state an A-series price for Store B. A draft sentence awaiting judgment reads: "Store B may sell the A series and apply Store A's price floor." The check requires confirming whether Store B's authorization scope covers the A series, whether the Price Control Table covers Store B, and whether the source the draft sentence relies on is within its valid period.
Two constraints follow. First, a retrieval hit is not an authorization confirmation. Store B has no A-series authorization in the sample, so even if retrieval returns an A-series price clause, that does not support a finding that Store B may sell the A series. Second, a similarity score is not an entity isolation mechanism. The minimum relevance value filters low-scoring passages; it does not exclude records belonging to unauthorized stores. Knowledge bases with different vector models cannot be associated together, so the vector model identifier is checked first and non-matching bases are excluded, without running a cross-model retrieval to compare missed recalls. The optional paths in the overall retrieval flow are not all executed on every request: image retrieval requires a corresponding image input and model capability, and reranking requires a rerank model enabled per settings.
Configuration and implementation checks
| Configuration or check item | Setting or action relevant to this page | Relation to the sample |
|---|---|---|
| Associated knowledge bases | Select one or more knowledge bases sharing the same vector model | First check the vector model identifier of the bases holding the Store Authorization List and the Price Control Table; exclude non-matching bases and do not run cross-model retrieval comparisons |
| Citation limit | Each search cites at most n tokens of content | For this hypothetical exercise, start at 800 tokens, chosen because the sample material is short; compare against the actual citation length returned and adjust |
| Minimum relevance | A value from 0 to 1, effective only under semantic retrieval or result reranking | For this hypothetical exercise, start at 0.3; compare against the recall scores of the authorization and price clauses in the sample, and low-scoring passages do not enter the citations |
| Search mode | Semantic retrieval, full-text retrieval, or hybrid retrieval | The sample contains exact fields such as store names, series names, and dates, so full-text or hybrid retrieval may be selected, decided by observed recall |
| Citation output handoff | Check whether retrieval output is passed to the answering stage | Compare the authorization scope and price floor in the answer against the cited source text line by line |
| Source currency check | Test sources using the current version and a historical version | The sample authorization period covers all of 2025; if the draft sentence cites an expired version, record it as pending verification |
Three common errors
- Treating a retrieval hit as authorization confirmation. In the sample, Store B has no A-series authorization, so even when retrieval returns an A-series price clause, that cannot support a finding that Store B may sell the A series. Check action: input the draft sentence and the authorization list source text, compare the Store B authorization scope field, and observe whether the answer turns an absence of authorization into permission to sell.
- Treating a similarity score as an entity isolation measure. The minimum relevance value only filters low-scoring passages and does not exclude records of unauthorized stores. Check action: input the Store B name and A-series keywords, compare whether the returned citations mix in clauses exclusive to Store A, and observe whether a cross-store clause is used as a basis for Store B.
- Writing a pending-review state as already effective. The sample Price Control Table does not state an A-series price for Store B, yet the draft sentence gives a price floor. Check action: input the draft sentence and the Price Control Table source text, compare whether the Store B price field exists, and observe whether the answer writes an unstated field as a settled value.
How to verify the setup
- Input the sample authorization list source text and the draft sentence "Store B may sell the A series and apply Store A's price floor." Compare the Store B authorization scope field against the subject of the draft sentence, and observe whether the answer states that Store B has no A-series authorization and that the draft sentence is unsupported. The condition is met when the answer preserves the authorization gap and does not apply Store A's clause to Store B.
- Input the sample Price Control Table source text and the price floor in the draft sentence. Compare the Store B price field against the value in the draft sentence, and observe whether the answer states that the Price Control Table does not record an A-series price for Store B. The condition is met when the answer marks the field as unstated and does not supply a fabricated price basis.
- Input an explicit paper empty result []. Check the downstream answering stage's design for handling empty citations, and observe whether the output link runs through without error termination. The condition is met when the downstream design can handle a zero-length citation array and does not judge the empty array as a retrieval failure.
These checks state expected observations only; no test, deployment, approval, or other business action is claimed to have occurred.