What the documents look like
Platform multi-store matrix management centres on four recurring document families: store authorization lists, price control tables, cross-territory complaint forms and monthly sales reports. The people who work with them are brand e-commerce leads, channel operators and dealer e-commerce teams. The distinguishing concern of this category is cross-store authorization and price order, which sits alongside single-store traffic efficiency rather than replacing it. Source systems named in the brief include each platform's merchant back office, ERP channel pricing, brand anti-counterfeiting systems and dealer reports, with updates at daily or monthly cadence.
For store service and internal training, knowledge-base retrieval and recall is used to locate the passages in those materials that bear on a training question. The retrieval result itself does not constitute authorization, approval or business execution. A passage that mentions an authorization number, a dealer name or a price does not by itself settle whether a proposed statement or handover request is supported.
Constraints at the retrieval step
The knowledge-base search node can associate one or more knowledge bases that use the same vector model. Bases built on different vector models cannot be associated together. Search modes are semantic retrieval, full-text retrieval and hybrid retrieval; hybrid retrieval merges multiple result paths through RRF, and ReRank performs a second ordering of candidate text. The citation ceiling is expressed in tokens. The minimum relevance value takes effect only under semantic retrieval or when result reordering is used. Question optimization performs coreference resolution and question expansion. The output citation content is an array whose length may be zero, so the output path still runs when nothing is retrieved. Retrieval and similarity scores do not carry permission or entity isolation; authorization status must be confirmed by a person reading the source material.
Hypothetical paper exercise sample. Source text A reads: "Authorization number A-017; authorized party is East China dealer Jia; authorization valid until 31 December 2025; authorization scope is limited to online store Yi." Source text B, a price control table, reads: "Store Yi, model X, suggested retail price 199 yuan, execution period 1 July 2025 to 31 July 2025." The draft sentence to be assessed is: "Dealer Jia may sell model X at 199 yuan through offline stores." The points to compare are whether the authorization scope covers offline stores, and whether the price execution period matches the context of the draft sentence.
Configuration and implementation checks
| Configuration item | Hypothetical starting value for this exercise | Reason and comparison method |
|---|---|---|
| Associated knowledge bases | Authorization list base and price control base, both using the same vector model | Check the vector model identifier of each base first, exclude any base on a different model, then associate |
| Search mode | Hybrid retrieval | The draft sentence contains both an identifier and natural language; compare semantic, full-text and hybrid recall on the sample |
| Citation ceiling | Provisionally 2000 tokens | Use the length of the sample source text as reference; compare whether the cited content fully covers the authorization scope and validity period |
| Minimum relevance | Provisionally 0.4 | Mark relevant and irrelevant passages in the sample first, then compare whether irrelevant passages are filtered at different thresholds |
| Question optimization | On | The sample contains a reference; compare whether the subject in the original question and the optimized question is altered incorrectly |
| Result reordering | On | Where candidate passages are numerous, compare ordering before and after reordering to see whether the authorization scope passage moves forward |
These values are hypothetical starting points for this exercise, not official defaults. Adjustments are settled by comparison against the sample source text.
Three common errors
- Treating a retrieval hit as authorization confirmation. In the sample, the authorization scope is limited to online store Yi. Treating the retrieved passage as permission for offline sales mistakes a retrieval result for an executed authorization. The authorization scope field in the source should be checked; where offline sales are not stated, the record is unsupported.
- Associating bases that use different vector models. If the authorization base and the price base use different vector models and are associated together, this breaches the same-model requirement. The vector model identifier of each base should be checked first, non-conforming bases excluded, and no cross-model retrieval comparison performed.
- Mixing different periods or different fields to judge a conflict. The sample price execution period is July 2025. Comparing it directly against the authorization validity date of 31 December 2025 to produce a conflict is a cross-field misreading. Comparison should use the same subject, the same period and the same field; unstated items are recorded as pending verification.
How to verify the setup
- Input the sample source text and the draft sentence, then compare whether the retrieved citation content includes the authorization scope and validity period passages. Observe whether the citation array covers the fields needed for the judgement. Where coverage is absent, record the gap and do not treat the draft sentence as supported.
- Input the sample source text and the price control table, then compare whether the vector model identifiers of the two bases match. Observe whether the association is permitted. Where the identifiers differ, exclude that base and record it, and do not run a cross-model retrieval comparison.
- Input a query with no corresponding material, then observe whether the citation content returns an empty array, and check whether the downstream design can accept an empty result. Do not assert that any invented rule necessarily returns an empty array; record only what is observed. A paper input of an empty array can be used to check the downstream design.