What the documents look like
Multi-store matrix management maintains several recurring records: store authorization lists, price control tables, cross-territory complaint forms, and monthly sales reports. Brand e-commerce leads, channel operations staff, and dealer e-commerce teams use these materials when handling order fulfillment and after-sales answers. Cross-store authorization and price order are the central concerns, which separates this category from single-store advertising work that tracks only one store's traffic efficiency. Data arrives from each platform's merchant back office, ERP channel prices, brand anti-counterfeit systems, and dealer reports, with daily and monthly update cycles.
These materials bear directly on citation tracing. An order reply needs to point to a specific entry in the store authorization list. An after-sales conclusion needs to point to a specific record in the price control table or the cross-territory complaint form. When document versions differ, the same store can carry different authorization status and different price baselines, so a citation must correspond to the version of the material actually used.
Constraints at the citation tracing step
The 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. When nothing is found, the output path still runs through. Once citation content passes to the downstream answer step, the answer and the cited source text need line-by-line comparison. Retrieval output by itself does not constitute authorization and does not constitute a business approval.
Hypothetical drill sample: a brand e-commerce lead holds the Store Authorization List (March 2025 version), which records "Store A authorized through December 31, 2025, authorization scope includes after-sales handling." A separate Price Control Table (March 2025 version) records "Store A, item A, minimum retail price 199 yuan." A draft sentence awaiting judgment reads: "Store A item A currently sells at 189 yuan, below the price control table floor, and can be judged as cross-territory diversion." This draft cites the price control table but does not state the material source for the 189 yuan price and does not state who makes the diversion determination.
The constraint is this: retrieval can return a price control table fragment, and the answer can restate the 199 yuan floor, but "189 yuan constitutes diversion" requires both price evidence and a diversion determination rule. Knowledge base search only recalls and outputs citations; it does not perform authorization checks and does not perform business judgment. The citation limit is controlled in tokens, and the minimum relevance score takes effect only in semantic search or result reranking; neither carries permission filtering. Associating knowledge bases requires the same vector model, which is a node-level association condition and does not extend to a claim that external systems must also share that model.
Configuration and implementation checks
| Configuration item | Hypothetical trial starting point | Reason and comparison method |
|---|---|---|
| Associated knowledge bases | Authorization list base, price control table base | Both bases use the same vector model; verify the vector model identifier before associating |
| Search mode | Hybrid search | Authorization numbers and price digits need keyword hits; semantic recall supplements wording differences |
| Citation limit | Hypothetical starting point 3000 tokens | Used to hold authorization clauses and price entries; compare citation completeness against 2000 tokens |
| Minimum relevance | Hypothetical starting point 0.5 | Takes effect only in semantic search or reranking; compare recalled entry count and irrelevant fragments against 0.3 |
| Question optimization | Enabled | Completes store name and item number in multi-turn follow-ups; compare retrieval term completeness against disabled |
| Citation content handoff | Output array checked line by line | Check the correspondence between answer sentences and cited source text |
The citation limit starting point and the minimum relevance starting point are trial settings for this exercise, not official default values, and need comparison against adjacent values with the actual observation recorded.
Three common errors
- Treating a retrieval hit as authorization confirmation. Input is a Store A authorization list fragment; compare the retrieval output against the authorization list source text. If the answer states "Store A is authorized" while the citation shows only list entry text, this is treating recall as authorization verification.
- Connecting a price figure directly to a diversion conclusion. Input is the 199 yuan floor in the price control table and the 189 yuan in the draft sentence; compare the source material for both figures. If 189 yuan has no corresponding sales record material, the judgment is unsupported.
- Treating the citation limit as a permission boundary. Input is the 3000 token citation limit; compare returned entries against all entries in the knowledge base. If content beyond the limit is treated as excluded by permission, this confuses trimming with authorization.
How to verify the setup
- Input the authorization list source text and the draft sentence from the hypothetical sample; compare whether the draft sentence marks its authorization source. If the answer restates the authorization validity period and points to the list entry, citation tracing is satisfied; if the answer asserts the authorization is valid without pointing to the entry, record it as unsupported.
- Input the price control table source text and the 189 yuan in the draft sentence; compare whether 189 yuan has an independent material source. If the answer states that 189 yuan lacks sales record support and keeps the diversion question pending verification, the condition is satisfied; if the answer gives a diversion conclusion directly, record it as beyond citation scope.
- Input an explicit paper-form empty array []; compare whether the downstream answer step continues through with empty citations. If the downstream shows no citation content and reports no error, the empty-result handoff design is satisfied; this check does not mean any retrieval rule necessarily returns an empty array.