What the documents look like
Franchise filing management operates around legal disclosure and the commerce department system. It does not handle individual site engineering. The working documents are franchise contracts, operation manuals, filing materials and information disclosure documents. The data sources are the commercial franchise information management system, enterprise licences, store lists and contract ledgers.
For operating reports and exception reviews in this category, the central action is to trace every factual claim in a report or review conclusion back to a specific version and clause position in those documents. Version differences between filing materials and information disclosure documents directly affect whether a review conclusion holds. When the same franchise contract clause is worded differently across versions, a citation must state which version it relies on. Material updates are irregular or annual. This page does not depend on update frequency, so no synchronisation mechanism is described.
The knowledge base search node outputs a citation array whose length may be zero. Even when no content is retrieved, that output path still runs. An empty array does not mean the workflow has errored and stopped. Retrieval only recalls candidate content. It does not perform authorisation decisions. Semantic recall and relevance scores do not carry permission or entity isolation functions. The same-vector-model requirement for linked knowledge bases does not extend to external commerce websites or other external systems.
Constraints at the citation tracing step
At this step, retrieval output and manual verification actions are kept strictly separate. When linking knowledge bases, first check the selected bases and their material versions. Only bases with the same vector model may be linked together. Bases with different vector models cannot be linked together. When an identifier does not match, exclude that base and record the actual observation. Do not run cross-model retrieval to compare missed recalls.
The overall document flow lists image retrieval and result re-ranking as optional paths. Not every request executes all of them. Image retrieval requires corresponding image input and model capability. Re-ranking requires a re-rank model and must be enabled according to settings. RRF is a fusion process for mixed results, not an on/off switch.
A relevance score is a filter threshold, not a final ranking rule. It is not a category, entity or permission filter. It does not exclude unrelated businesses or unauthorised records. Retrieval is not authorisation. Forms collect values. Business verification, approval, database writes and external synchronisation need their stated downstream implementation.
Configuration and implementation checks
The table below lists settings or implementation checks already described in the official documents, tied to this page's main task. The numeric values are hypothetical starting points for this exercise only. Each entry states the reason for the choice and the comparison object.
| Configuration item | Hypothetical starting point for this exercise | Reason and comparison method |
|---|---|---|
| Linked knowledge bases | Select only filing material bases whose vector model identifiers are identical | Check whether the vector model identifiers of each base match; compare against non-matching bases and exclude them |
| Search mode | Hybrid search | Compare candidate coverage against semantic search alone; observe whether numbered queries are hit |
| Citation limit | Hypothetical starting point of 3000 tokens | Compare citation completeness against 1500 tokens; observe whether clauses are truncated |
| Minimum relevance | Hypothetical starting point of 0.3 | Compare the number of returned items against 0.5; observe whether low-relevance fragments decrease |
| Result re-ranking | Enable when a re-rank model is available | Compare candidate ordering against not enabling it; observe whether relevant clauses move forward |
| Question optimisation | Enable only in multi-turn follow-up scenarios | Compare retrieval term completion against not enabling it; observe whether references are resolved |
Three common errors
- Treating retrieval output directly as an authorisation conclusion. Input is the citation array returned by the search node. The comparison object is the business authorisation status field. The observable result is that citation content appears while the authorisation field remains pending review. A retrieval hit does not change a pending-review status. Pending review does not demonstrate that operating permission is absent.
- Linking knowledge bases with different vector models together. Input is the vector model identifiers of two bases. The comparison object is whether the identifiers are identical. The observable result is that non-matching identifiers should not be linked together. The runtime result of cross-model linking has no documented basis. Record only the identifier check and the exclusion action.
- Judging an empty citation array as a workflow failure. Input is an explicit paper output
[]. The comparison object is the downstream receiving design. The observable result is that the downstream can still receive the empty array and continue executing. An empty array does not equal an error termination. It also cannot be claimed that a fictional rule retrieval will always return[].
How to verify the setup
The following verification uses a hypothetical paper exercise sample. The sample material text is: "Party A is the franchisor, Party B is the franchisee. This contract is valid from 1 January 2024 to 31 December 2026. Party B shall complete the initial training within 30 days of signing." The draft sentence to be assessed is: "The franchise contract took effect on 1 January 2024, and Party B has completed the training." This sample is a paper exercise and does not refer to any real entity.
- Input the draft sentence and the material text. Compare the two fields of contract effective date and training completion status. The material text states only the validity start point and the training obligation. It does not state that training has been completed. The observable result is that the effective date can be supported, while the training completion status is unsupported and the evidence gap must be recorded.
- Input the contract period field from the material text. Compare whether the draft sentence exceeds that period. The observable result is that the draft sentence does not exceed the range of 1 January 2024 to 31 December 2026, and the period field is consistent.
- Input a handover request: "Please confirm that this franchisee's filing has been completed." The comparison object is the filing status record within the accessible retrieval scope. If no filing completion record exists within the retrieval scope, the observable result is that the request is pending verification and must not be judged as completed or not completed. Signing, cooperation being reached and contract effectiveness are three distinct facts. This sample does not state the filing completion status, so the evidence gap is retained.
This feature has verified public technical facts for identifying relevant content in documents. It does not require copying them as a fixed five-row table; the main text is written independently: linked knowledge bases, citation content output, citation input handling, citation display verification and material timeliness verification.