What the documents look like
Permit handling happens before customs declaration, and it decides whether a shipment can legally cross the border. This page covers one task inside that work: comparing a contract against the transaction materials that support it, with the comparison result traced back to the exact source text it came from. The materials involved are automatic import licences, dual-use item licences, contracts and product descriptions. Each shipment is handled as its own case, and updates arrive irregularly rather than on a fixed schedule.
Citation tracing answers a narrow question: which material, which field and which version does a comparison conclusion rest on. The licence fields and the contract fields sit in different documents, so a conclusion such as "the contract item matches the licensed goods" has to point back to specific wording in specific files. Retrieval at this step returns reference content as an array, and the array length can be zero. A zero-length array means this retrieval returned nothing; the output path still completes. Whether a downstream node continues, and how it reports the gap, is a separate design decision.
A working sample makes the tracing requirement concrete. Hypothetical drill sample: Material A is an automatic import licence stating "Licence holder: Hualing Machinery Manufacturing Co., Ltd.; licensed goods: CNC lathe; valid scope: 1 March 2026 to 30 June 2026." Material B is a purchase contract stating "Buyer: Hualing Machinery Manufacturing Co., Ltd.; subject matter: CNC lathe; delivery date: 20 May 2026." The draft sentence under review reads: "The contract subject matter matches the licensed goods, and the delivery date falls within the licence validity period." The holder, the object and the period can all be checked against the two originals. The contract does not state a licence number, and the draft sentence does not state one either, so that field remains unsupported.
Constraints at the citation tracing step
The comparison conclusion must be able to point back to source wording. A retrieval hit is not an authorization decision: retrieval returns reference content only. It does not verify whether the licence holder is eligible to apply, and it does not determine whether the contract has taken effect. A pending approval request is not an approval, and an unsigned termination is not a completed termination. Where a field is absent from the materials, the correct state is unsupported or pending verification, not a confirmed conflict. A conflict requires the same field, the same subject and the same period carrying mutually exclusive values. Related-stage evidence is not the same as a contradiction.
Knowledge bases can only be associated together when they share the same vector model. This is a retrieval-scope condition, and it does not extend to business registration sites or any other external system. A relevance threshold is a filter value, not a category, entity or permission filter, and it does not exclude unrelated businesses or unauthorized records. Retrieval is not authorization. Forms collect values; business verification, approval, database writes and external synchronization each need their own downstream implementation. Scheduled triggers and hidden controls are not assumed.
The overall retrieval flow lists optional paths, and not every request executes all of them. Image retrieval requires image input plus a model that supports it. Reranking requires a rerank model and must be enabled in settings. The thinking budget is a reasoning budget and has no connection to the reference token limit. Mixed retrieval combines multiple result channels through RRF; RRF is a fusion process inside that mode, not a separate switch.
Configuration and implementation checks
| Configuration item | Hypothetical starting value for this trial | Reason and comparison method |
|---|---|---|
| Associated knowledge bases | Select the existing licence and contract document bases | Check each base's vector model identifier first; only identical vector models may be associated together |
| Search mode | Hybrid retrieval | Licence numbers and goods codes are exact fields, and semantic retrieval has limited precision on identifier-type queries |
| Minimum relevance | Hypothetical starting value 0.5 | This value applies only under semantic retrieval or result reranking; run the same sample batch against 0.3 and 0.7 for comparison |
| Reference limit | Hypothetical starting value 2000 tokens | The limit is controlled in tokens; compare against 1000 and 4000 for reference count and completeness |
| Result reranking | Enabled | A rerank model must be available and enabled in settings; compare candidate ordering before and after |
| Reference output handoff | Check whether the reference array reaches the answering step | Compare each answer sentence against the quoted source text; check an empty array as an empty array |
Three common errors
- Treating a retrieval hit as an authorization. Retrieval returns reference content only; it does not verify holder eligibility or contract effectiveness. Check: input Materials A and B, then observe whether the output contains only source fragments. If the output states something like "licence granted," that conclusion has no reference support.
- Treating an empty reference array as a terminated workflow. The documentation states the reference length can be zero and the output path still completes. Check: use the paper input
[]to examine the downstream node design, and observe its branch on receiving an empty array. Do not infer that retrieval will necessarily return empty. - Forcing knowledge bases with different vector models into one association. Check: read each base's vector model identifier, exclude those with different identifiers from this association, and record the actual observation. Do not run a cross-model retrieval to compare missed recalls.
How to verify the setup
- Input the original text of Materials A and B together with the draft sentence, and compare the phrase "the subject matter matches the licensed goods" against the corresponding fields in both originals. Condition met: the answer places the quoted source text from Materials A and B beside that conclusion. If the reference is missing or points to another material, the condition is not met.
- Input the same batch of materials and compare the validity period field cited in the answer against the date range stated in Material A. Condition met: the quoted source text contains "1 March 2026 to 30 June 2026" and agrees with the draft sentence's assessment. If the reference gives only a year and month without specific dates, the field remains unsupported.
- Input a draft sentence that omits the licence number field, and observe whether the answer supplies a licence number. Condition met: the answer clearly notes that this field is not stated in the materials. If the answer provides a specific number without a cited source, the condition is not met.