What the documents look like
Brand omnichannel stock transfer covers goods moving between stores and warehouses. It does not cover marketing outreach. The working materials are transfer requests, stock snapshots, store shortage lists and transfer logistics notes. Data arrives from ERP inventory, store POS, e-commerce orders and WMS. These materials refresh daily or weekly, and a single transfer in transit can span more than one week. Citation tracing therefore has to separate versions of the same document dated differently.
The primary task in store service and internal training is to let store stockkeepers and e-commerce warehouse staff answer operational questions from traceable source text, and to check whether drafted wording matches that source. Citation tracing at this step confirms that a cited transfer request, shortage list or logistics note exists, that the version is current, and that it has been quoted correctly.
Constraints at the citation tracing step
The knowledge base search node outputs a citation array, and the length of that array can be zero. An empty array means the retrieval chain ran but returned no content. It does not mean the workflow raised an error and stopped. The answering step receives that array and must check the answer against the cited source text item by item.
Linked knowledge bases must use the same vector model. Bases built on different vector models cannot be linked together. At implementation, check the vector model identifier of each selected base and exclude any that does not match. Do not run a cross-model search to compare missed recalls. Retrieval and similarity scores carry no permission or entity isolation function. The minimum relevance value is a filter threshold and cannot be used to exclude unauthorized records.
Hybrid search merges multiple retrieval paths through RRF. RRF is a fusion process, not a switch to be turned on. Reranking requires a rerank model and must be enabled in the settings. Image retrieval requires the corresponding image input and model capability. The optional paths shown in the overall flow diagram do not all execute on every request.
Hypothetical drill sample
Source text one (transfer request, version dated 2025-03-10): "Requesting party: East China Region Store A; receiving party: East China Region Central Warehouse; item: spring knitwear SKU-2210; requested quantity: 120 units; request status is pending review."
Source text two (store shortage list, version dated 2025-03-10): "Store A SKU-2210 currently sellable 8 units, safety stock 20 units, shortage 12 units."
Draft handover request under assessment: "The 120-unit transfer of SKU-2210 for Store A has passed review; the central warehouse should prepare stock at this quantity."
In this request, "has passed review" corresponds to the field value "pending review" in source text one. Same subject, same period, same field, mutually exclusive values, so this is a contradiction. The stocking quantity of 120 units matches the requested quantity, but the review status is not supported.
Configuration and implementation checks
| Configuration or check item | Purpose on this page | Value and comparison method |
|---|---|---|
| Linked knowledge bases | Limit the retrieval scope | Check that the vector model identifier matches across selected bases; exclude any that do not match; do not run a cross-model search |
| Search mode | Determine the recall path | Choose full-text or hybrid search when the material contains codes or model numbers; this sample contains SKU-2210 and needs an exact hit |
| Citation limit | Control total cited tokens | For this hypothetical trial, start at 3000 tokens because the sample material is short and three source passages must be cited in full; compare against 1500 tokens to observe truncation |
| Minimum relevance | Filter low-relevance results | For this hypothetical trial, start at 0.3 because the sample question is clear; compare against 0.5 to observe the change in the number of recalled items |
| Citation content output | Receive retrieval results | Check that the output is an array; use the paper input [] to check how the downstream design handles an empty array |
| Answer citation check | Compare against source text item by item | Compare the drafted sentence against source text one field by field, marking matched, contradicted or unsupported |
Three common errors
- Treating "pending review" as "has passed review". The input is the request status field in source text one; the comparison object is "has passed review" in the drafted sentence; the two are mutually exclusive values of the same field, and the observed result is a contradiction. Pending review does not demonstrate that an operating permission is missing, and it does not constitute a completed review.
- Using a similarity score to infer that a record is authorized. The input is the relevance value returned by retrieval; the comparison object is the authorization status field; the two do not belong to the same dimension, and the observed result is unsupported. Relevance is not a permission filter, and retrieval does not produce authorization.
- Judging an empty citation array as a workflow failure. The input is the zero-length array output by the search node; the comparison object is the workflow termination condition; the observed result is that the chain still runs through. An empty array does not equal an error termination, and the downstream design must be checked separately.
How to verify the setup
- Input source text one and the drafted sentence, compare the request status field values, and observe whether the result is marked as a contradiction with the original text "pending review" retained. The condition is met when the drafted sentence is marked unsupported and no review-passed clause has been added.
- Input the paper array
[]and the downstream answering node design description, compare how the downstream handles an empty array, and observe whether it is recorded as a gap to be verified. The condition is met when the downstream design explicitly receives an empty array and no claim is made that a fictional rule search necessarily returns empty. - Input the list of vector model identifiers for the selected knowledge bases, compare whether the identifiers are consistent, and observe whether inconsistent bases are excluded and recorded. The condition is met when the linked scope contains only bases with the same vector model and no cross-model search has been run to compare missed recalls.