What the documents look like
Multi-store matrix management draws on each platform's merchant backend, ERP channel pricing, brand anti-counterfeiting systems and dealer reports. Compared with single-store advertising, this category concentrates on cross-store authorization and price order. The documents handled day to day include store authorization lists, price control tables, cross-territory complaint forms and monthly sales reports. In cross-border material and multilingual retrieval, one authorization or price file may exist in several language versions, so a retrieval result has to be traced back to the specific source text before it is used.
The citation output of a knowledge base search node is an array of cited content whose length may be zero. An empty array means the search path completed and returned nothing; it does not mean the workflow stopped with an error. This distinction matters for multilingual work, because a query in one language may legitimately return no cited passage while the run itself is healthy.
Constraints at the citation tracing step
A knowledge base search node can select one or more knowledge bases that use the same vector model for vector search. Knowledge bases built on different vector models cannot be associated together. The vector model identifier is checked first, non-matching bases are excluded, and the actual observation is recorded. A cross-model retrieval is not run in order to compare missed recalls.
The cited content is output as an array and may have length zero; the output path still completes when nothing is found. The retrieval output is passed to the answering step, where each answer is checked against the cited source text.
Minimum relevance is a filter threshold, not a final ranking rule. Semantic recall and relevance scores do not perform permission or entity isolation. Hybrid search merges results from several channels through the RRF formula; RRF is a fusion process, not a switch that is turned on. Reranking requires a configured model and must be enabled according to settings. Image retrieval requires corresponding image input and model capability. These optional paths in the documented flow diagram are not executed on every request.
Configuration and implementation checks
The following configuration is built around one hypothetical paper exercise. The source material reads: "Authorization letter number A-2026-0301, authorizing party a brand owner, authorized store Store A, authorized sales region East China, authorization valid until 31 December 2026, authorization status signed." A second source reads: "Price control table V3, Store A suggested retail price in East China 199 yuan, effective date 1 March 2026, control status in effect." The draft sentence to be assessed reads: "Store A sells at 199 yuan in East China, authorization valid until 31 December 2026, sources authorization letter A-2026-0301 and price control table V3." This sample only illustrates the checking method and does not claim that any test was actually performed.
| Configuration item | Hypothetical starting point for this exercise | Reason and comparison method |
|---|---|---|
| Associated knowledge bases | Select the store authorization list and the price control table | Compare the vector model identifiers of the two bases; only matching identifiers allow joint association |
| Search mode | Hybrid search | Authorization numbers and price figures suit full-text search, natural-language phrasing suits semantic search |
| Minimum relevance | Hypothetical starting value 0.5 | Compare with the known relevant passage in the sample and observe whether this value filters out the passage containing the authorization number |
| Citation limit | Hypothetical starting value 2000 tokens | Compare with the combined length of the two source passages and observe whether both the authorization letter and the price table are covered |
| Result reranking | Enabled | Check whether a rerank model is configured and compare how rerank scores and vector scores order the sample differently |
| Question optimization | Not enabled for this sample | The sample question already names the subject and number; compare retrieval time and hit passages with and without it |
Three common errors
- Treating retrieval output as proof of authorization. A returned citation array only shows that the search path produced output; it does not show that store authorization is in effect or that price control has been approved. The check compares the source text cited in the answer with the authorization status field in the store authorization list and observes whether the two agree.
- Treating minimum relevance as a permission filter. Minimum relevance is a 0-1 filter threshold that removes low-relevance results; it does not exclude unauthorized stores or unrelated business records. The check compares whether authorization records of other stores appear in the retrieval result and observes whether those records still appear after the threshold is adjusted.
- Treating an empty citation array as a system error. Cited content may have length zero while the output path still completes. The check compares whether the search node output is [] and then examines whether the downstream answering step is designed to accept an empty array, observing whether the workflow stops because of the empty array.
How to verify the setup
- Enter the draft sentence from the hypothetical sample and compare whether the returned cited content contains both the authorization letter A-2026-0301 and price control table V3 passages. Observe whether the citation array length is greater than zero and whether the authorization validity date and price in the cited source text match the draft sentence.
- Enter an authorization query that mentions only Store B and compare whether Store A's authorization record appears in the retrieval result. Observe whether the returned cited content stays within the queried subject scope, record the returned items actually observed, and do not assume in advance that an unrelated query must return nothing.
- Enter an explicit empty-result continuation scenario in which the search node outputs []. Compare whether the downstream answering step is designed to handle the empty array. Observe whether the workflow continues and whether the answering step produces a notice that no cited content is available. This scenario is a paper check and does not claim that a constructed rule retrieval necessarily returns [].
The public technical facts reviewed for this page cover the following points: the knowledge base search scope is checked against the selected knowledge bases and material versions, and only bases with the same vector model may be associated; the search node outputs a citation array whose length may be zero, and an empty array does not mean the workflow stopped with an error; the retrieval output is passed to the answering step and each answer is checked against the cited source text; traceable samples are used to check source display, and thinking process or fluent answers do not substitute for source evidence; current and historical document versions are used to test sources, and whether a citation is adopted still depends on review of the valid version.