rag-cite-sources

rag-cite-sources — every claim traces to a source

When to use this skill

Whenever an answer contains any of these:

• A specific number, threshold, config value, or version taken from the corpus
• A statement about how the system currently works, was designed, or was decided
• A code snippet, function signature, or API contract quoted from indexed files
• A "the runbook says", "the ADR says", "the RFC decided", "we agreed" claim
• A recommendation grounded in prior team practice

Basically: if a curious reader would want to double-check where you got that, cite.

What this skill commits to

Every technical claim in the response carries a citation of the form:

• [path/to/file.md:42] — line-anchored (from search_knowledge result's source field)
• [path/to/file.md#section-heading] — section-anchored for Markdown
• [path/to/file.md] — file-only, when line/section is not available

Citations are inline at the point of the claim, not batched at the end. One claim = one citation.

Steps

1. When you call search_knowledge or get_document, capture:

   • The source field (usually the file path)
   • The filename (short name for display)
   • Any chunk_id or line hint in the metadata
   • The actual content you are about to quote or paraphrase

2. When you draft the response, mark every fact-carrying sentence with its source. Preferred inline syntax:

   Per ADR-0018 [docs/adr/0018-auth.md], the payment service uses mTLS between services.
   The retry policy is 3 attempts with exponential backoff [services/payment/retry.py].
   

3. If quoting verbatim, use fenced blockquote + citation:

   > "All external API calls must timeout after 30 seconds."
   > — [docs/architecture/http-contracts.md#timeouts]
   

4. If synthesizing across multiple sources, cite each:

   The service uses OAuth2 [docs/adr/0018-auth.md] with a 15-minute access token TTL
   [config/auth.yaml:12] and refresh-token rotation on every use [docs/security/oauth-flow.md].