How an answer is checked
The system checks evidence before it writes the final answer
Earlier steps may already have called a model, to classify the request or prepare the query. The decision to answer or refuse is made before the final answer is written.
- 01Prepare
Classify the request, resolve references, and rewrite the query.
- 02Search
Run keyword and dense-vector search, combine the rankings, and rerank.
- 03Build context
Stay inside the token limit, expand related passages, and include more than one document when the rule requires it.
- 04 · GateCheck evidence
Apply the evidence rule before the final answer is written.
- 05Answer or refuse
Stream an answer with citations, or stop and record why there is no answer.
- 06Record
Save the request, the retrieval result, the evidence decision, and timing from selected stages.
The gate
If the evidence is too weak, there is no final answer
The evidence rule is configurable for each workspace. Set it from the cost of a wrong answer. When a wrong answer costs more than a refusal, require stronger evidence.
A refusal skips the final answer call and records a reason. It does not invent a softer answer in the same breath.
After an answer is sent
Scores are records, not a recall
Model-based checks after an answer record quality scores and review flags. They do not withdraw an answer that has already been sent.
An answer that is not a refusal carries source citations. The measured claim is citation presence: a refusal passes; any other answer needs at least one citation. That is not a check that every sentence is supported.
Versions
A historical question needs the text that applied then
If a source overwrites a rule and keeps no archive, no retrieval system can reconstruct what applied on an earlier date. RAGForge does not invent that history.
Issuer, version, and effective dates have to survive ingestion. If the applicable version is missing, the safe result is a refusal, not an answer from today's text.