What the documents look like
Channel diversion review concerns regional and price order. It does not handle rebate amounts, which belong to a separate reconciliation process. The working materials are anti-counterfeit code system records, e-commerce platform prices, distributor shipment records and market inspection results. The daily documents are diversion complaint forms, anti-counterfeit code records, penalty notices and investigation photographs.
In cross-border work these materials frequently appear in different languages. The anti-counterfeit code record for one shipment and the complaint form describing it may be written in different languages, and the shipment record may use a third. The citation tracing step has to place the original passage from each language side by side with what the retrieval output returns, so a reviewer can check the correspondence by hand. Material updates run weekly and irregularly; that cadence does not change the tracing step described here.
Constraints at the citation tracing step
The knowledge base search node outputs cited content as an array, and the array length may be zero. An empty array does not mean the workflow has errored out or terminated. Knowledge bases selected together must use the same vector model; bases with different vector models cannot be associated in one search. Semantic search supports cross-language understanding, so a Chinese question can match an English knowledge point, but vector search accuracy depends on model training and data quality. Hybrid search merges multiple recall paths through RRF, and reranking produces a 0–1 score used for filtering. The minimum relevance value is a filter threshold and applies only under semantic search or when result reranking is used. Retrieval itself does not perform authorization judgment, and a similarity score is not an entity or permission filter.
Hypothetical drill sample: a brand channel control staff member receives an English diversion complaint form reading “Complaint No. CN-2024-0871. Subject: 300 units of model AX-200 found in Region B on 2024-11-05, outside authorized Region A territory. Batch code BC-7712.” A Chinese distributor shipment record reads “Shipment No. FH-2024-1103, model AX-200, quantity 300 units, batch BC-7712, receiving region A, shipment date 2024-11-01.” The draft sentence to be judged is “This batch of AX-200 has been confirmed as diverted to Region B, based on complaint CN-2024-0871.” The check is whether that draft sentence is supported by the source wording.
Configuration and implementation checks
| Configuration item | Hypothetical trial starting point | Reason and comparison method |
|---|---|---|
| Associated knowledge bases | Select the bases holding the complaint form and the shipment record whose vector model identifier matches | Verify the vector model identifier and exclude mismatched bases; do not run a cross-model search |
| Search mode | Hybrid search | The complaint carries the exact number CN-2024-0871, suited to full-text recall, while the semantic path handles the multilingual wording |
| Minimum relevance | Hypothetical starting value 0.3 | Trial starting point, not an official default; compare recalled item counts against a run with no threshold to observe filtering |
| Citation limit | Hypothetical starting value 2000 tokens | Trial starting point, not an official default; compare citation completeness against a 4000-token setting |
| Question optimization | Enabled | A cross-language question may lack its subject; observe the completed retrieval terms after enabling |
| Result reranking | Enabled according to settings | Reranking requires a model and must be enabled in settings; the rerank score is used for filtering |
Three common errors
- Treating retrieval output as an authorization conclusion. The search node outputs a citation array, and retrieval does not judge permissions. The erroneous practice is to treat a recalled complaint form as proof that diversion is established. Check: confirm the cited content is used only as material awaiting review, and confirm authorization status separately.
- Associating knowledge bases across vector models. Bases with different vector models cannot be associated together. The erroneous practice is to select bases with mismatched identifiers and compare their recall. Check: verify the vector model identifier of each base, exclude those that do not match, and record the actual observation.
- Treating a pending-review status as a completed penalty. A penalty notice still under review does not show that it has been executed. The erroneous practice is to treat an unsigned notice as an effective penalty. Check: verify the signature and effective-status fields of the notice, and record an evidence gap where they are absent.
How to verify the setup
- Enter the English complaint text and the Chinese shipment record text from the hypothetical sample, then compare whether the draft sentence “has been confirmed as diverted to Region B” is supported by the source. The complaint states “found in Region B” and “outside authorized Region A”; the shipment record states receiving region A. Condition satisfied: the number, model, quantity and batch cited in the draft sentence match the source, and the diversion determination status matches the source wording. If the source states only the place of discovery and states no determination conclusion, the draft sentence is judged unsupported.
- Enter a retrieval request containing a Chinese question only, and compare whether semantic search matches the English knowledge point. Condition satisfied: the citation array returns English material passages semantically related to the Chinese question, and each cited item can be traced to its source text. If an empty array is returned, record it as no recall and do not infer that an unrelated query must return nothing.
- Enter a paper input of an empty array [] as the retrieval output, and check the design of the downstream answer step. Condition satisfied: the downstream design explicitly accepts an empty array without erroring out or terminating. If the downstream design does not state how an empty array is handled, record it as unsupported and do not assert that a fabricated rule causes retrieval to return an empty array.
For the citation-limit check, treat the token figure as a citation budget, not as a thinking budget; thinking budget settings belong to the model reasoning configuration and serve a different purpose. Where a rerank model is not configured or reranking is not enabled, the rerank score is unavailable and the relevance filter relies on the semantic path alone; record that condition rather than assuming reranking ran.