What the documents look like
Repair and reship work aims to restore a product to use. It does not close through a direct refund decision, which separates it from refund-only disputes. Four document types carry the operational record: repair applications, reship orders, inspection reports, and accessory outbound slips. These come from the after-sales system, the order system, repair sites, and the accessory warehouse WMS. The state and validity scope recorded in each document decide which original text may be cited when answering a customer question.
The update rhythm given for this category is per order and daily. That rhythm means material versions for one work order can coexist across different dates, so a citation step has to check which version is currently effective. The stated rhythm does not support any conclusion about batch synchronization or event-triggered updates.
Constraints at the citation tracing step
The knowledge base search node outputs a citation array, and its length may be zero. An empty array does not mean the workflow has errored or stopped; the output path still runs. The minimum relevance value is a filter threshold that applies during semantic search or when result reranking is used. It does not perform permission filtering or entity isolation, and retrieval itself is not authorization.
Linked knowledge bases must share the same vector model. Libraries built on different vector models cannot be linked together. The check is to inspect the model identifier and exclude any library that does not match; a cross-model retrieval is not run to compare missed recalls. RRF is the fusion step inside hybrid retrieval, not a switch that can be turned on. The citation limit is measured in tokens and is unrelated to any thinking budget.
Hypothetical paper exercise: a brand after-sales work order shows a repair application stating "the item sent for repair is a Model A electric kettle, the fault description is powered on but not heating, application date 10 March 2025." An inspection report states "inspection conclusion: the heating base is damaged, replacement of the base is recommended, report date 12 March 2025." An accessory outbound slip states "outbound accessory: one Model A heating base, outbound date 13 March 2025, receiving site: Chengdong site." A draft reply sentence reads: "This work order has completed repair and been shipped back, and the accessory has been signed for by the Chengdong site." The outbound slip records only the outbound movement. It does not state a signature or a completed return shipment, so the draft sentence exceeds the state recorded in the materials.
Configuration and implementation checks
| Configuration or check item | Hypothetical starting point for this exercise | Reason and comparison method |
|---|---|---|
| Linked knowledge bases | Select the after-sales knowledge base and the accessory knowledge base | First compare the vector model identifiers of both; exclude any that do not match, and do not run cross-model retrieval |
| Citation limit | Hypothetical starting point of 2000 tokens | Compare against the actual length of the work order material and observe whether citations are truncated |
| Minimum relevance | Hypothetical starting point of 0.3 | Compare against returned retrieval scores and observe whether low-scoring fragments are filtered |
| Search mode | Hybrid retrieval | Compare against identifier and model-number queries and observe whether full-text recall matches |
| Citation handoff | Pass the citation array into the answering node | Compare each answer sentence against the cited original text |
| Material version check | Take the current version of the repair application | Compare against historical versions to confirm the cited version is effective |
Three common errors
- Treating a retrieval hit as authorization or completed approval. The input is the citation array returned by retrieval, and the comparison object is the actual work order state field. If the cited content and the state field disagree, the citation does not support a conclusion that repair is complete.
- Treating an accessory outbound slip as proof of signature or return shipment. The input is the original text of the outbound slip, and the comparison object is a signature record or a return shipment record. If the material contains no signature field, that conclusion is unsupported.
- Treating minimum relevance as permission filtering. The input is a low-scoring cited fragment, and the comparison object is the set of work orders the user may access. If the fragment belongs to another work order, relevance does not perform an isolation function.
How to verify the setup
- Input the original texts of the repair application, inspection report, and accessory outbound slip from the hypothetical sample. Compare the draft reply sentence against the state fields of all three materials. If the draft sentence states "shipped back" while the materials contain no return shipment record, the sentence is judged to exceed the material scope.
- Input the accessory outbound slip from the hypothetical sample. Compare whether its fields include a signing party and a signature date. If those fields are absent, record an evidence gap and do not judge the signature as completed.
- Input an explicit paper value of an empty array []. Compare whether the downstream answering node continues to run on an empty citation. If the node still produces an answer, record that handoff behavior. Do not claim that a fictional rule search necessarily returns an empty array.