What the documents look like
Site selection and store opening at a chain headquarters happen before a store begins trading. The work centres on lease negotiation and engineering delivery. The main data sources are trade-area footfall, map POI, historical POS store-type records and landlord materials. The documents handled day to day are the site evaluation form, the letter of intent for lease, the renovation budget and the opening schedule. These materials are updated irregularly, once per store.
The people involved are expansion staff, regional development staff and engineering managers. At handover, their practical question is what state a document is currently in and who has the authority to move it forward. Citation tracing connects retrieved source text and drafted wording to an authorisation state, so that a search result or a filled-in form is not treated as granted authority.
Constraints at the citation tracing step
The knowledge base search node outputs cited content as an array, and the array length may be zero. When nothing is retrieved, the output path still runs through; an empty array is not a workflow error termination. Knowledge bases linked together must share the same vector model. Libraries with different vector models cannot be linked together, so the model identifier is checked first and non-matching libraries are excluded.
The minimum relevance setting takes effect only in semantic retrieval or when result re-ranking is used. It is a filter threshold and does not perform permission or entity isolation. The same-vector-model requirement for linked retrieval libraries does not extend to external systems. RRF is the fusion step for multiple result paths in hybrid retrieval, not a switch that can be turned on. A thinking budget is a reasoning budget and is unrelated to the cited-token ceiling.
Hypothetical paper exercise sample: an expansion department at a chain headquarters holds a paper Site Evaluation Form whose header states "Object: XX Road shop; Prepared by: Expansion Department; Date: 10 March 2025; Status is pending regional development review". A draft Letter of Intent for Lease states in its body: "The lessee intends to lease the above shop for a term of five years, with rent paid quarterly; this letter takes effect on the date both parties sign it." One sentence awaiting judgement reads: "The lease terms for this shop are confirmed, and renovation scheduling may proceed." The available materials contain no signature page from either party and no regional development review opinion. The handover request reads: "Engineering manager, please arrange the renovation milestones according to the confirmed lease terms."
Configuration and implementation checks
| Configuration item | Starting value for this hypothetical exercise | Reason for the choice and comparison method |
|---|---|---|
| Linked knowledge bases | Select only knowledge bases sharing the same vector model as the site evaluation form and letter of intent | Compare the vector model identifier against each already-selected library; exclude any library whose identifier differs |
| Search mode | Hybrid retrieval | Compare retrieved content against semantic retrieval and full-text retrieval separately, and observe whether numbered fields are matched |
| Cited-content ceiling | Set to 3000 tokens as the starting value for this hypothetical exercise | Compare with the cited-token volume of the previous retrieval and observe whether truncation occurs |
| Minimum relevance | Set to 0.3 as the starting value for this hypothetical exercise | Compare against the default value and observe whether low-scoring fragments still enter the cited array |
| Result re-ranking | Enabled | Compare candidate ordering with the disabled state and observe whether the re-rank score is used for filtering |
| Cited-content output | Check whether the output array length can be zero | Use the paper input [] to check the downstream handling design; do not claim that retrieval necessarily returns [] |
Three common errors
- Treating a pending-review status as granted authority. In the sample, the Site Evaluation Form status is "pending regional development review" while the drafted sentence says the lease terms are confirmed. The input is the form's status field and the drafted sentence. The comparison is whether both point to the same authorisation fact. The observable result is that the status field does not record a completed review, so the "confirmed" wording in the draft is unsupported.
- Treating a draft letter of intent as an effective contract. In the sample, the letter states it takes effect on the date both parties sign it, and no signature page appears in the materials. The input is the effectiveness clause and the presence or absence of a signature page. The comparison is whether the effectiveness condition is met. The observable result is that the signing fact is missing and the contract's effective status remains to be verified.
- Treating a retrieval hit as an authority credential. The input is the cited array returned by knowledge base search. The comparison is between the cited content and the authorisation scope of the handover request. The observable result is that the cited array presents source text only and contains no approval or release record, so renovation milestones cannot be arranged on that basis.
How to verify the setup
- Compare the Site Evaluation Form text in the hypothetical sample with the drafted sentence "The lease terms for this shop are confirmed, and renovation scheduling may proceed" line by line. The input is the form's status field "pending regional development review" and the drafted sentence. The comparison is how both describe authorisation for the same object and the same period. If the drafted sentence claims confirmation while the source only records a pending review, the claim is unsupported and the evidence gap is recorded.
- Compare the draft Letter of Intent for Lease in the hypothetical sample with the handover request. The input is the effectiveness clause "this letter takes effect on the date both parties sign it" and the presence or absence of a signature page. The comparison is whether the signing fact holds. If the signature page is absent, the contract's effective status remains to be verified and the draft letter cannot serve as the basis for renovation scheduling.
- Use the paper input [] to check downstream handling. The input is an empty cited array. The comparison is whether the downstream node continues to execute on an empty array. The observation is whether the output path runs through. This check verifies only the empty-result handling design and does not claim that actual retrieval necessarily returns an empty array.