What the documents look like
This category covers single-use plastic bag and disposable item reporting for supermarkets and convenience stores. The material set is specific: plastic bag procurement ledgers, sales vouchers, half-year reports, and self-discipline commitments. Data arrives from the Ministry of Commerce reporting system, POS plastic bag sales, procurement systems, and store ledgers. The update rhythm is mixed: half-year for reports and daily for sales records.
For operations handover, citation tracing means confirming who submitted or received each material, under what permission, and in what state. A retrieval hit or a completed form does not by itself constitute authorization to act. The consequences of error include a deadline for rectification, fines from ten thousand to one hundred thousand yuan, and regulatory interviews. Handover records therefore need to trace back to specific materials and operation states.
Constraints at the citation tracing step
The knowledge base search node outputs a citation content array, and the length can be zero. An empty array still completes the output path; it does not mean the workflow has errored or terminated. Linked knowledge bases must share the same vector model. Cross-model linking is not permitted; the correct step is to check identifiers and exclude non-matching bases rather than run a cross-model search for comparison.
The minimum relevance score is a filter threshold. It applies only under semantic retrieval or when result reranking is used. It does not function as a permission filter or an entity isolation mechanism. Retrieval returns material fragments; authorization status must be confirmed separately through manual review or a downstream system. Hybrid retrieval merges multiple result paths through RRF, which is a ranking mechanism rather than a standalone switch that can be turned on.
A hypothetical paper exercise illustrates the tracing problem. On 10 July 2025, a supermarket headquarters compliance officer received a store-submitted "Plastic Bag Procurement Ledger (First Half of 2025)." The final page states: "This ledger is for internal statistics only; external reporting requires headquarters compliance approval." On the same day, a handover request states: "Please submit the ledger directly to the Ministry of Commerce reporting system." The two source sentences for comparison are: "This ledger is for internal statistics only; external reporting requires headquarters compliance approval." and "Written consent from headquarters compliance must be obtained before submission." The draft sentence to be assessed is: "The ledger can be submitted directly to the Ministry of Commerce reporting system." The subject is the store, the object is half-year report submission, the state is pending approval, and the effective scope is limited to the first half of 2025.
Configuration and implementation checks
| Configuration item | Hypothetical starting point for this exercise | Comparison method and reason |
|---|---|---|
| Linked knowledge base selection | Select only knowledge bases confirmed to share the same vector model | Check each base identifier and vector model; exclude non-matching bases and do not run cross-model retrieval |
| Citation content output handling | Citation array may have length zero | Use a paper input [] to check whether downstream nodes still complete the path; do not claim retrieval must return empty |
| Minimum relevance score | Hypothetical starting value 0.3 for this exercise | This value applies only under semantic retrieval or reranking; compare with 0.5 to observe filter differences, and do not treat it as a permission filter |
| Citation limit | Measured in tokens; hypothetical starting value 2000 for this exercise | Compare with 1000 to observe truncation scope; do not repurpose thinking budget as a citation token limit |
| Material timeliness check | Use current and historical document versions | Compare two versions of the same material to confirm the cited source version; adoption still requires review of the valid version |
| Handover authorization state | Manual review of approval records | Pending review does not equal existing operation permission; check signing, cooperation reached, and contract effectiveness as separate facts |
Three common errors
- Treating a retrieval hit as authorization approval. In the hypothetical sample, the ledger states that external reporting requires headquarters compliance approval. If the ledger is retrieved and this is taken as permission to submit, the error confuses retrieving material with executing an approval. The check inputs the ledger source text and the draft sentence, compares "requires approval" against "can be submitted directly," and marks the draft as unsupported when it lacks an approval basis.
- Writing a pending review state as a completed approval. In the sample, the handover request is pending approval. If the output states "compliance consent obtained," this is an error. The check inputs the request state field and approval records, compares whether the state value and "consent given" are mutually exclusive in the same field, and marks the item as pending verification when only a pending review record exists.
- Judging an empty citation array as a system failure. The search node output length can be zero and the path still completes. If an empty array is used to assert retrieval failure or workflow termination, this is a misjudgment. The check inputs a defined paper
[]and compares whether the downstream design still accepts it; if the downstream path completes normally, no failure is present.
How to verify the setup
- For the hypothetical sample's ledger source text and draft sentence, input "This ledger is for internal statistics only; external reporting requires headquarters compliance approval" and "The ledger can be submitted directly to the Ministry of Commerce reporting system," then compare whether the draft sentence contains an approval basis. The expected observation is that the draft is marked unsupported when it lacks an approval basis, and the evidence gap is retained.
- For the handover request's pending approval state, input the state field "pending review" and the approval records, then compare whether both point to the same period and the same field. The expected observation is that when only a pending review record exists, the item is marked pending verification rather than judged as approved or rejected.
- For the empty citation output, input the paper
[]and the downstream acceptance design, then compare whether downstream nodes still complete the path. The expected observation is that when the downstream path completes normally, the empty array is confirmed as not constituting an error, and no claim is made that a fabricated rule retrieval must return empty.