What the documents look like
Livestream product selection and sample quality inspection happen before a broadcast goes live. The core judgment is whether a product can be sold and whether it suits on-camera presentation. Supplier materials, testing-agency reports, platform negative lists, and historical return rates together form the citation sources. The sample evaluation form, quality inspection report, supplier qualification file, and prohibited-sales list are the four document types most often cited during handover. Citation tracing answers a narrow question: which material, which version, and which field a stated conclusion or a proposed sentence came from, and what authorization state that material occupied at the moment of handover.
Two industry facts shape this step. First, inspection materials update weekly and per product, so the same item may carry different report versions across weeks; source checks therefore compare a current version against a historical version, and whether a citation is adopted still depends on valid-version review. Second, retrieval only recalls candidate content and does not perform authorization judgment. Recalling a supplier qualification file does not mean that qualification passed review, and it does not mean the supplier holds broadcast permission. A knowledge-base search node outputs a citation array whose length may be zero, and an empty array does not mean the workflow errored or terminated.
Constraints at the citation tracing step
Associated knowledge bases must share the same vector model to be linked together. During a check, first compare the vector model identifiers and exclude any base that does not match; do not run a cross-model search to compare missed recalls. The search node's citation output is an array and may be empty. When the output is empty, the downstream chain still runs through, so an empty citation set is a state to record, not a failure to assume.
Retrieval is not authorization. A relevance score is a filtering threshold, not a category, entity, or permission filter, and it does not exclude unrelated businesses or unauthorized records. A form collects values; business verification, approval, database writes, and external synchronization each require their own stated downstream implementation. A pending request is not an approval, an offered option is not execution, and an unsigned termination is not a completed termination.
Optional paths in the overall retrieval flow are not executed on every request. Image retrieval requires actual image input and matching model capability. Reranking requires a rerank model and must be enabled by configuration. The same-model requirement for linked knowledge bases does not extend to business-registration sites or other external systems.
Hypothetical paper exercise sample. A batch product is a "portable juicer cup," sample number YPB-2024-07. The sample evaluation form states: "Sample received 8 July 2024; appearance and function initial inspection passed; to be submitted to the selection meeting after the quality inspection report is filed." The supplier qualification file states: "Copy of business license received, business scope includes household appliance sales; food-contact material test report not submitted." The proposed sentence under review is: "This sample has complete qualifications and can go live directly."
The comparison is same-subject, same-field. The proposed sentence claims complete qualifications, while the qualification file explicitly records that the test report was not submitted. The proposed sentence claims direct broadcast eligibility, while the evaluation form records only submission to the selection meeting after the report is filed and states no broadcast permission. The proposed sentence is unsupported by the source text.
Configuration and implementation checks
The table below covers this page's sample and lists only documented settings or implementation check items. Numeric values are hypothetical starting points for this exercise, with the reason for choosing them and the comparison object.
| Configuration item | Hypothetical starting point | Reason and comparison method |
|---|---|---|
| Associated knowledge base | Selection-inspection base A | Compare the vector model identifier of base A against the target base; exclude any mismatch and do not run a cross-model search |
| Citation limit | Set to 2000 tokens for this exercise | No fixed value is given in the documents, so this is an exercise starting point; compare whether citations cover both the evaluation form and the qualification text under different values |
| Minimum relevance | Set to 0.5 for this exercise | This value takes effect only in semantic retrieval or with result reranking; compare whether the qualification text segment remains after filtering |
| Search mode | Hybrid retrieval | Sample number YPB-2024-07 is an exact query; hybrid retrieval fuses semantic and full-text results through RRF |
| Result reranking | Enabled per configuration | A rerank model must be available; compare whether the rerank score and the cited text point to the same field |
| Citation output handling | Item-by-item check | Check whether the retrieval output is passed to the answering step and verify each answer against the cited source text |
Three common errors
- Treating a retrieval hit as an authorization pass. Input: the qualification file text "food-contact material test report not submitted." Comparison object: the proposed sentence "complete qualifications." Observable result: the proposed sentence and the source text hold mutually exclusive values in the same field, so the sentence is unsupported.
- Writing a pending-review state as already effective. Input: the evaluation form text "to be submitted to the selection meeting after the quality inspection report is filed." Comparison object: the proposed sentence "can go live directly." Observable result: the source text states no broadcast permission, so the proposed sentence lacks a basis.
- Linking knowledge bases that use different vector models. Input: the vector model identifiers of base A and base B. Comparison object: whether the two identifiers match. Observable result: when the identifiers differ, exclude the base and do not run a cross-model search.
How to verify the setup
- Input the qualification file text and the proposed sentence from the hypothetical sample. Compare whether "test report not submitted" and "complete qualifications" are mutually exclusive in the same field. A mutually exclusive result means the proposed sentence is unsupported.
- Input the evaluation form text "to be submitted to the selection meeting after the quality inspection report is filed" and the proposed sentence "can go live directly." Compare whether the source text states broadcast permission. If the source does not state it, record the item as pending verification rather than as a denial.
- Input a clearly labelled paper array
[]and the downstream answering step. Compare whether the downstream step continues to run with an empty citation set. If it continues, that matches the documented condition that an empty array does not terminate the workflow. This result does not mean that a search under an invented rule will necessarily return an empty array.