What the documents look like
Trade returns and claims handle reverse logistics and liability determination after export. The work sits apart from ordinary export customs declaration because it concerns what happens after goods have left, who bears responsibility, and how claims are supported. Materials arrive from customer email, quality inspection reports, customs systems, and insurer claim systems. The everyday documents are the return agreement, the claim letter, the quality report, and the return customs declaration. Updates are irregular and case by case. These documents play different roles in contract and transaction material comparison: the return agreement and claim letter record what each side asserts, the quality report provides the basis for cargo condition, and the return customs declaration reflects what was declared. Citation tracing requires that a comparison conclusion can be traced back to specific source text, and that the material version and its effective scope can be checked.
Constraints at the citation tracing step
The knowledge base search node outputs an array of cited content whose length may be zero. An empty array does not mean the workflow has errored or terminated. The citation limit controls the maximum amount of content cited per search, measured in tokens. The minimum relevance value takes effect only in semantic retrieval or when result reranking is used. Knowledge bases that use different vector models cannot be associated together; the identifier must be checked first and non-matching bases excluded. Whether a retrieved result is adopted still depends on review of the effective version. Retrieval by itself does not constitute authorization.
Hypothetical exercise sample. Source text one: "Return agreement states: the buyer shall return the goods to the designated bonded warehouse no later than 10 March 2025, and the return reason is recorded as outer packaging damage." Source text two: "Quality report states: 40 cartons were sampled, of which 6 cartons had outer packaging damage; no damage was found to the goods themselves." The draft sentence to be assessed: "The quality report confirms that all goods had outer packaging damage, and the buyer has completed the return." Assessment requires the same subject, the same period, and the same field. The materials record only 6 damaged cartons and an obligation to return; they do not record damage to all goods, and they do not record that the return has been completed.
Configuration and implementation checks
| Configuration or check item | Purpose on this page | Relation to the sample |
|---|---|---|
| Associated knowledge bases | Confirm the selected knowledge bases and material versions | The sample materials must sit in knowledge bases using the same vector model, otherwise they cannot be associated together |
| Citation limit | Control the tokens cited per search | The hypothetical starting value for this exercise is 2000 tokens, chosen because the three sample passages total roughly 300 characters, so this value includes them fully with margin; compare against 1000 tokens to observe truncation |
| Minimum relevance | Filter low-relevance results during semantic retrieval or reranking | The sample draft sentence is semantically close to the source text, so observe whether this value filters out a valid citation |
| Cited content output | Receive the citation array, which may have length zero | A paper input of [] is used to check how the downstream branch is designed when an empty array arrives |
| Citation display check | Compare each answer item against the cited source text | The sample draft sentence must be compared word by word against the two source passages |
| Material currency check | Test sources with current and historical document versions | The sample must carry a material version; adoption still depends on review of the effective version |
Three common errors
- Reading "6 cartons damaged" as "all damaged." The draft sentence says "all goods had outer packaging damage," while the source records 6 damaged cartons out of 40 sampled, which widens the scope. The check inputs the two source passages and the draft sentence, compares the damaged-carton-count field, and finds that the word "all" does not appear in the source, so the statement is not supported.
- Reading "shall return by a certain date" as "the return has been completed." The source is an obligation, while the draft sentence says "has completed the return," which misjudges the state. The check compares the return-status field, and because the source contains no completion record, the statement remains pending verification.
- Treating a retrieval hit as authorization or effectiveness. The sample concerns a return and a claim, and retrieving agreement text does not mean the agreement has taken effect or that the claim has been accepted. The check compares the authorization-status field, and because the materials record no signature or acceptance record, this remains an evidence gap.
How to verify the setup
- Input the two sample source passages and the draft sentence, compare the damage-scope field, and find that the draft sentence contains "all" while the source records only 6 cartons; the result is judged not supported.
- Input the sample source text and the draft sentence, compare the return-status field, and find that the source uses the obligation wording "shall return by a certain date" while the draft sentence says "has completed the return"; the result is judged pending verification.
- Input a paper citation array of [], observe whether the downstream branch design runs through, and confirm that receiving an empty result does not trigger an error; this input is a paper construction and makes no claim that an actual search returned an empty array.