What the documents look like
Site selection and store opening work happens before a store begins trading. The core activities are lease negotiation and engineering handover rather than day-to-day store supervision. The working materials for this category are trade-area footfall, map POI data, POS history by store type, and landlord documents. The documents handled day to day include the site evaluation form, the letter of intent for lease, the renovation budget, and the opening schedule.
These documents are updated irregularly and once per store. During negotiation the same item of material can exist in several versions. Citation tracing answers a specific question: for each conclusion in an answer, which document, which field, and which effective period does it come from. When version status is unclear, rent-to-sales ratio calculation, lease clause checking, and renovation milestone coordination all lack a verifiable starting point.
Constraints at the citation tracing step
The knowledge base search node can select one or more knowledge bases that share the same vector model, and it outputs cited content as an array whose length may be zero. Even when nothing is retrieved, that output path still runs. The citation limit is controlled in tokens. The minimum relevance value is a filter threshold and takes effect only under semantic retrieval or when result reranking is used. Neither of these acts as a permission filter or an entity separator. A similarity score does not distinguish business entities, and a retrieval result does not constitute authorization. Hybrid retrieval merges multiple result paths through RRF. Reranking requires a model and must be enabled according to settings. Image retrieval requires the corresponding image input and model capability. These paths are not all executed on every request.
Hypothetical paper exercise sample: A chain headquarters development department holds a paper Site Evaluation Form (Store A) stating "Evaluation object: street-front unit in trade area A; basis for rent-to-sales ratio calculation: landlord quotation, March 2024 version; evaluation status is pending regional development review." In the same batch of material there is a draft Letter of Intent for Lease (Store A) whose footer states "intended terms, not signed by either party." One draft sentence to be assessed reads: "Store A's rent-to-sales ratio has passed headquarters review, and the lease intention has been confirmed." Against the evaluation form text, only "calculation basis exists, status is pending review" is supported. Against the letter of intent text, only "draft, unsigned" is supported. The phrases "has passed review" and "has been confirmed" in the draft sentence are not supported by the given material.
Configuration and implementation checks
| Configuration or check item | Hypothetical starting point for this exercise and reason | What it is compared against |
|---|---|---|
| Associated knowledge bases | Select only the site-selection knowledge base whose vector model identifier has been confirmed identical | Whether the vector model identifiers of the bases match; exclude any that differ |
| Citation limit | Start at a token amount that covers the main fields of one evaluation form, because those fields are concentrated | Whether the output citations cover the fields being checked; record when they exceed or fall short |
| Minimum relevance | Keep the document default, because there is no clear tuning need | Whether filtered results under semantic retrieval or reranking still contain the target material |
| Search mode | Start with hybrid retrieval, because the same batch contains both coded fields and natural-language descriptions | Whether coded fields and descriptive questions each retrieve the target material |
| Citation content output | Receive as an array, length zero permitted | Whether the downstream path still runs on an empty array, and whether it is misread as an error |
| Document currency check | Retrieve with the current and the historical version of the evaluation form separately | Whether the version cited in the answer matches the version used for the check |
Three common errors
- Treating a retrieval hit as completed authorization. The input is the draft Letter of Intent for Lease (Store A). The comparison object is the status "not signed by either party." The observable result is that a draft sentence reading "the lease intention has been confirmed" does not match the source status.
- Writing a pending review as passed. The input is the evaluation form status "pending regional development review." The comparison object is the draft sentence "has passed headquarters review." The observable result is that the two status field values are mutually exclusive, and the draft sentence is judged unsupported.
- Treating a similarity score as an entity or permission filter. The input is a retrieval result inside a knowledge base with one vector model. The comparison object is the entity referenced in the draft sentence against the entity of the material. The observable result is that the score level does not change material ownership, and a conclusion beyond authority remains unsupported.
How to verify the setup
- Perform a paper comparison between the evaluation form text above and the draft sentence. The input is the evaluation form value "pending regional development review" and the draft sentence "has passed headquarters review." Compare the values of the same status field. If the two are mutually exclusive, the draft sentence is judged unsupported. If the material lacks that field, record it as pending verification.
- Perform a status check against the draft letter of intent. The input is "intended terms, not signed by either party" and the draft sentence "the lease intention has been confirmed." Compare the signing status. Only material showing completed signing permits rewriting that sentence; otherwise the evidence gap remains.
- Check downstream handling with an explicitly paper-based empty input. The input is cited content []. Compare whether the downstream answer step still executes and produces output, and observe whether any conclusion appears that the material does not support. This check does not claim that a fictional rule retrieval necessarily returns an empty array.
This page addresses only chain headquarters site selection and store opening, product material and selection questions, and citation tracing. During operational handover, which materials, actions, and requests sit at which authorization state cannot be treated as authorization execution by retrieval or by a form.