County FOIA staff note that the RAG bot's citations omit document version IDs needed to defend public-records responses. What retrieval-answer property is missing?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
When FOIA asks 'which edition did you rely on?', a bare title isn't enough. Bake durable version IDs into retrieval citations so the county can defend what the bot grounded on.
Full Explanation
Provenance and citation integrity that include durable version identifiers for retrieved civic sources is the missing retrieval-answer property. County FOIA staff must defend which edition of a document grounded a public-records-related answer. Citations that omit version IDs leave the county unable to reconstruct what the bot relied on when policies, fee schedules, or ordinances change. Index and return durable version or content-hash identifiers with each citation so answers are auditable.
Higher temperature to invent plausible version numbers fails by concept: fabricating identifiers worsens FOIA defensibility and is frank hallucination. Removing all citations to avoid FOIA scrutiny fails by destroying accountability and does not stop incorrect grounding. Storing only the latest PDF bytes without version metadata fails because overwrite-without-history breaks the ability to prove what was retrieved at answer time.
Exam caveat: Grounding without durable provenance is weak grounding for government use. Versioned citations are part of answer quality for FOIA-ready municipal assistants.
Operational check: Ensure ingest captures version ID or content hash per object, surface those IDs in citation objects, sample FOIA-sensitive answers and verify staff can locate the exact edition, and alert when retrieved objects lack version metadata.