What the documents look like
Brand-owned stores are staffed and accounted for directly by the brand, so sales, inventory and scheduling records sit with the brand rather than with a franchise contract. The main data sources named in the brief are the POS system, member CRM, ERP inventory and store inspections. The documents handled day to day are daily sales reports, shift schedules, display photos and inventory transfer orders, with updates at a daily or weekly cadence. In a cross-border setting, one transfer order may exist in both a Chinese version and an English version, and the field names in a daily sales report can differ between regions. These differences bear directly on citation tracing: a retrieved passage has to be checkable against a specific version, a specific date and a specific store. Treating a citation of an old transfer order as the current basis for action would place a later inventory step on expired material.
Constraints at the citation tracing step
The knowledge base search node can be linked to one or more knowledge bases that use the same vector model, and it outputs citations as an array whose length may be zero. An empty array means the output branch still runs; it does not mean the workflow has stopped with an error. The retrieved result is passed to the answering stage, and each source in an answer should be traceable back to the cited original text for item-by-item checking. Semantic search supports cross-language understanding, so a Chinese question can match an English knowledge point, which gives cross-border material retrieval a basis. A similarity score reflects the degree of content relevance only, and does not perform permission or entity isolation. The requirement that linked knowledge bases share the same vector model constrains the vector model identifier alone, and does not extend to business-registration sites or other external systems.
Hypothetical drill sample: an inventory transfer order dated 10 March 2025, subject being a brand-owned store in East China, object being 20 spring jackets, status being "pending regional manager review", valid range 10 March to 17 March 2025. A second, older transfer order dated 28 February 2025 covers the same store and the same category, with status "rejected". The draft sentence under review is: "The store's transfer of 20 spring jackets has been approved by the regional manager and can proceed to outbound release." The pending request is: "Based on the retrieved transfer order citation, confirm that this batch of jackets can currently be released." The check must establish whether subject, object, status and valid range fall on the same piece of material. A rejected older version and a pending-review newer version are different statuses and cannot stand in for each other. Pending review does not amount to approval.
Configuration and implementation checks
| Configuration item | Hypothetical starting point for this drill | Reason for the choice and comparison method |
|---|---|---|
| Linked knowledge bases | Link only cross-border material bases already confirmed to use the same vector model | Check the vector model identifier of each base first; exclude any base whose identifier does not match |
| Search mode | Hybrid search | Transfer orders carry numbers and proper nouns, so semantic and full-text retrieval each cover part of the case; observe whether both recall paths reach the sample |
| Minimum relevance | 0.3 as the hypothetical starting point for this drill | This value is a 0–1 figure and takes effect only in semantic search or with result reranking; compare against 0.5 to observe whether the sample is still recalled |
| Citation limit | 2000 tokens as the hypothetical starting point for this drill | The citation total is controlled in tokens; compare against 1000 tokens to observe whether the sample text is truncated |
| Result reranking | Enable ReRank | Reranking yields a 0–1 score; compare against the ordering without it to observe whether the sample ranks near the front |
| Question optimization | Not enabled for this sample | The sample question has a complete subject; enabling it adds one model call, so compare with it enabled to observe whether the retrieval terms are rewritten |
Three common errors
- Treating pending review as approved. The sample transfer order has status "pending regional manager review", while the draft sentence states it "has been approved". The input is the sample original text and the draft sentence, the comparison object is the status field, and the observable result is that the two values do not match.
- Substituting an older version for the current one. The sample holds a rejected version dated 28 February and a pending-review version dated 10 March. If the citation points to the older version and release is judged from it, the input is the two pieces of material, the comparison object is date and status, and the observable result is that the cited source and the version named in the draft sentence differ.
- Reading a retrieval score as a permission decision. A similarity score reflects content relevance only. The input is one high-scoring citation, the comparison object is whether that citation belongs to the current store and the current authorization scope, and the observable result is that the score level cannot answer the authorization question, which requires a separate authorization record.
How to verify the setup
- Input the sample transfer order text and the draft sentence, compare the status wording in the draft sentence against the status field in the original, and the observable result should be that the two do not match, so the draft sentence cannot be judged as approved.
- Input the two sample materials, the 28 February older version and the 10 March newer version, compare the date and status the citation points to, and the observable result should be that the cited source distinguishes the two versions and does not apply the older status to the newer judgment.
- Input an explicit paper empty result
[], compare how the downstream answering stage is designed to handle an empty citation, and the observable result should be that the downstream can accept a zero-length citation without interruption; whether a real search returns an empty array must rest on actual observation and is not guaranteed.