What the documents look like
Import and export permit handling occurs before customs declaration and determines whether a shipment may lawfully cross a border. In the copy drafting step, product and marketing sentences draw on documents such as automatic import licences, dual-use item licences, contracts and product descriptions. These materials arrive from commerce authority systems, customs commodity codes, supplier files and customer end-use statements. They refresh irregularly and can change from one shipment to the next. A sentence that names a licence category, an applicable scope or a validity period needs to trace back to specific wording in a specific document. When document versions diverge, the same shipment can correspond to different statements, so a citation must record version and date.
Two features of this material shape the tracing task. First, permit handling sits upstream of declaration, so a drafted sentence about licence status can affect whether goods are presented at all. Second, the source set is heterogeneous: a licence, a contract and a product description carry different authority, and a claim supported by one is not automatically supported by another.
Constraints at the citation tracing step
A knowledge base search node may associate one or more knowledge bases that share the same vector model. Knowledge bases built on different vector models cannot be associated together. The search node outputs cited content as an array whose length may be zero; an empty array does not mean the workflow has errored or stopped. Cited content is then passed to the answering step, where each answer sentence is checked against the cited source text.
Retrieval produces candidate content. It does not perform permission isolation or entity separation. A minimum relevance value is a filter threshold; it does not exclude unrelated businesses or unauthorized records. Hybrid retrieval combines multiple result paths through RRF, which is a fusion step inside retrieval. Reranking requires a model and must be enabled in settings. Image retrieval requires image input and matching model capability. These optional paths do not all execute on every request.
Hypothetical paper exercise sample: a product description states, "This product is intended for general industrial use. Export to Country A requires an automatic import licence, and the licence validity period is governed by the issuing authority's document." A drafted sentence states, "This product has obtained the automatic import licence for Country A and may be exported long term." The comparison takes the product description text and the drafted sentence as input, then compares subject, object, status and validity scope. The source states only that a licence must be applied for; it does not state that one has been obtained. The drafted sentence asserts both acquisition and long-term validity, which the source does not support. The drafted sentence is unsupported and must be returned for a licence issuance document or revised wording.
Configuration and implementation checks
| Configuration item | Hypothetical starting point for this exercise | Reason and comparison method |
|---|---|---|
| Associated knowledge bases | Select permit document bases that use the same vector model | Official guidance requires the same vector model before joint association; verify the model identifier first and exclude non-matching bases |
| Search mode | Hybrid retrieval | Licence numbers and product descriptions coexist; semantic recall and full-text recall are combined through RRF |
| Citation limit | Hypothetical starting point of 4000 tokens for this exercise | Official guidance controls the citation limit in tokens; compare against the length of a single permit document and adjust |
| Minimum relevance | Hypothetical starting point of 0.4 for this exercise | Official guidance states this value takes effect under semantic retrieval or reranking; compare against the relevance distribution of recalled content |
| Reranking | Enabled | Official guidance states reranking reorders candidate text a second time; a model must be available and the setting enabled |
| Citation output handling | Pass the citation array to the answering step | Official guidance states the output is an array whose length may be zero; check whether the downstream step handles an empty array |
Three common errors
- Treating "has obtained the licence" in the drafted sentence as a factual citation. The input product description states only that a licence must be applied for, not that one has been obtained. The check takes the source text and the drafted sentence as input, compares the status field, and finds that the source contains no acquisition statement, so the drafted sentence is unsupported.
- Treating minimum relevance as a permission filter. A relevance score does not isolate businesses or records. The check takes one permit record belonging to an unrelated business as input, observes whether it is excluded because of a low relevance score, and finds that it is not excluded, which shows relevance does not act as access control.
- Describing RRF as a switch that can be turned on. RRF is the result fusion step inside hybrid retrieval. The check inspects the configuration interface for an RRF switch; when none exists, RRF is confirmed as a process stage rather than a setting.
How to verify the setup
- Take the product description text and the drafted sentence from the hypothetical sample above as input, and compare the four fields of subject, object, status and validity scope. The drafted sentence claims acquisition while the source states only that a licence must be applied for. Record the result as unsupported and require a licence issuance document before the sentence can be used.
- Take a clearly labelled paper input of an empty array, written as [], and observe whether the downstream answering step accepts it. The condition is met when the downstream step does not error and can process empty citations. Do not claim that a fictional rule search will necessarily return an empty array.
- Take one permit document as input and observe whether the citation output contains the source passage together with a source identifier. The condition is met when the cited content matches the source text and can be traced to a specific document version. Retrieval does not guarantee a first-position hit or full recall, so record the actual observation.
Across all three checks, the comparison must use the same subject, the same period and the same field. Only mutually exclusive values in the same field constitute a contradiction. A statement that is not present, or that rests only on a related stage of evidence, remains unsupported or pending verification. A pending review does not demonstrate the absence of an operating permission. Signing, reaching cooperation and contract effectiveness are three separate facts. A quotation validity period does not indicate a supply period. Do not supply an authorization or effectiveness clause to obtain a definite answer; record the evidence gap as it stands.