What the documents look like
Closure settlement for chain stores handles exit and asset recovery, moving in the opposite direction from head-office site selection and store opening. Inventory procurement and supplier records for this task draw on POS inventory, fixed-asset systems, lease contracts and financial ledgers. The working documents include closure approvals, inventory clearance forms, lease termination agreements and asset count sheets. These materials are held separately by chain operations, finance, legal and landlord contacts, and they update irregularly, store by store.
For citation tracing, the practical need is to bind inventory procurement records and supplier materials to a specific document version so later review can compare an answer against the original wording. The knowledge base search node can associate one or more knowledge bases that share the same vector model, and it outputs an array of cited content whose length may be zero; an empty array still passes the output path. Search results then go to the answering step, where the answer is checked line by line against the cited original text. Similarity scores and the minimum relevance setting affect ordering and filtering only; they do not perform permission or entity isolation. Hybrid search merges multiple result paths through RRF, and reranking requires a model and runs according to its setting. Image retrieval requires image input and model capability. Optional paths shown in the overall document flow diagram do not mean every request executes all of them.
Assumed paper exercise sample (not a real record): an operations staff member for the East China region of a chain brand submits a closure handover request. The draft sentence reads: "The 12 refrigerated cabinets listed on Store A's inventory clearance form have been recovered by Supplier A, the lease termination agreement has been signed, and the deposit refund conditions are met." The source material for comparison reads: "Inventory clearance form number QD-2024-031, clearance date 15 March 2024, refrigerated cabinets 12 units, status is pending supplier confirmation of recovery." "Lease termination agreement signing status is pending landlord signature." The item to judge: whether the draft sentence's statements of completed recovery and completed signing are supported by the material.
Constraints at the citation tracing step
The first constraint is that the search node returns cited content, not a verified business fact. The output is an array that may be empty, and an empty array does not mean the workflow has raised an error and stopped. The second constraint is that the answer must be compared against the cited original text, item by item. A fluent answer is not evidence of a source. The third constraint is that the minimum relevance value is a filter threshold applied when semantic search or result reranking is in use; it is not a final ordering rule and it does not exclude unrelated businesses or unauthorized records. Retrieval is not authorization.
The fourth constraint concerns association. Only knowledge bases that share the same vector model can be associated together. The identity of the selected knowledge bases and the version of the material must be checked before association, and non-conforming bases are excluded. Cross-model association is not performed to compare missed recalls. The fifth constraint concerns optional paths: image retrieval needs a corresponding image input and model capability, and reranking needs a model and runs according to its setting. The sixth constraint concerns the difference between a document state and a completed fact. Pending supplier confirmation is not completed recovery. Pending landlord signature is not a signed agreement. Signing, cooperation being reached, and contract effectiveness are three distinct facts, and a quotation validity period does not indicate a supply period. Missing authorization or effectiveness clauses must not be invented to obtain a definite answer; the evidence gap stays open.
Configuration and implementation checks
The configuration below is tied to the assumed sample. The numeric values are starting points for this exercise, used for comparison against the source material, and are not official defaults.
| Configuration item | Assumed starting point for this exercise | Reason and comparison target |
|---|---|---|
| Associated knowledge bases | Inventory clearance form base, lease termination agreement base | Both bases must use the same vector model; check the base identifiers before associating |
| Search mode | Hybrid search | The number QD-2024-031 is an exact query, so semantic and full-text recall are both used |
| Citation limit | Assumed 2000 tokens for this exercise | Compared against the length of the clearance form text to confirm the full passage can be cited |
| Minimum relevance | Assumed 0.3 for this exercise | Compared against the rerank score to observe whether the sentence under judgment retrieves the corresponding original text |
| Question optimization | Off | The draft sentence has a complete subject and predicate, and enabling it adds one model call |
| Result reranking | Enabled | When candidate results are numerous, text is reordered a second time and runs according to its setting |
Three common errors
- Writing pending supplier confirmation of recovery as completed recovery. The source material's status field reads "pending supplier confirmation of recovery," while the draft sentence states "recovered by Supplier A." The two values are mutually exclusive on the same field, so the statement is unsupported.
- Writing pending landlord signature as signed. The source material's signing status reads "pending landlord signature," while the draft sentence states "the lease termination agreement has been signed." The values conflict on the same field, and signing and effectiveness are different facts.
- Treating a retrieval score as a permission filter. The minimum relevance value filters low-relevance results only; it does not exclude unrelated businesses or unauthorized records. The cited source still requires manual comparison of the material version and authorization state.
How to verify the setup
- Input the draft sentence from the assumed sample together with the two passages of source material, and compare the draft phrase "completed recovery" against the material status field "pending supplier confirmation of recovery." If the search result returns the clearance form text and the answer checks line by line against the original, the comparison condition is met. If the original text is not returned, record it as an evidence gap.
- Input the draft phrase "the lease termination agreement has been signed" and compare it against the material signing status "pending landlord signature." If the answer clearly marks the statement as unsupported by the material, the behaviour matches expectation. If the answer directly confirms that signing is complete, judge it as an incorrect citation.
- Use the paper input of an empty citation array [] and check whether the downstream answering step continues along the output path with an empty result. If the downstream design can accept an empty array and record the gap, the condition is met. This check does not claim that a fictional rule search will necessarily return an empty array.
These checks describe what to input, what to compare and what observable result satisfies the condition. They do not claim that any test has been run, that any deployment has been approved, or that any business action has occurred.