FIELD NOTE · RETRIEVAL
Contract answers with page citations
An answer that cites the exact page it came from — and says nothing when the document was never verified.
- What it reads
- Every page of a document you've verified — never a page from one you haven't.
- What triggers it
- A question about the project. The answer is built only from pages the index actually holds.
- What it needs from you
- A document you uploaded and verified.
Where each answer comes from
Two questions about the same executed subcontract, sourced to the page they came from. A third question, about a document nobody verified, comes back with nothing to cite.
Is this a pay-if-paid contract?
Yes — the executed subcontract sets a 45-day payment cycle from the GC's receipt of the owner's payment.
Ask the question and the answer comes back sourced: the executed subcontract with the elevator sub is pay-if-paid, with a 45-day cycle running from the GC's receipt of the owner's payment.
VerifiedDOC-1 — page 14
Is hoistway pressurization included in the elevator package?
No — the same subcontract excludes hoistway pressurization and temporary use of the elevators for construction hoisting.
The same subcontract's exhibits carry the exclusion in writing: hoistway pressurization and smoke relief "by others," and temporary use of the elevators for construction hoisting "not included." Neither exclusion is a dead end — this case tracks both further: one becomes a change order, the other a pending commitment, elsewhere in the file this page came from.
VerifiedDOC-1 — page 16
What does the unverified amendment sitting in the file library say?
Nothing comes back. It was uploaded, but nobody verified it.
It sits in the project's file library, uploaded but never verified. Ask a question only that document could answer, and nothing comes back — not a low-confidence page, not a partial quote. It was never read into the index, so there is nothing to cite.
No citation. Nothing in the index answers this.
The ladder stops here — the last question has no page behind it.
The check, in full
Every answer traces back to a page you verified — nothing else, and nothing less.
- You upload a document and open it. If it is the right document, you verify it — one click, a human decision, recorded as a timestamp.
- Only verified documents are read into the answer index. Each page becomes its own record, so a citation can name an exact page.
- When you ask a question, the answer comes back with the source: filename — page N.
- An unverified document contributes nothing. It is not “weighted lower”; it is not in the index.
What does NOT trigger it
- A document you uploaded but never verified.
- A document that is not in the system at all.
- Anything the pages do not say.
This is a deterministic check — the same inputs produce the same result every time. No model decides it.
What this does not do
- It does not decide
- It hands you the page and the sentence on it. It does not tell you what the clause means for your project, and it will not.
- The blind spot
- It answers from the pages of documents you verified. It does not know what is not in them, it does not fill gaps, and it will not infer intent from a clause it cannot find.
- The precondition
- It only ever answers from a document you verified — a human decision, recorded once. An uploaded document nobody has verified is not weighted lower. It is not there.
- No score
- There is no confidence percentage anywhere in this, because a number shaped like evidence is not evidence.
Your call
The answer names the page it came from. Go read page 14 yourself, and see if you land somewhere different.
What the rep does next
The owner's rep opens DOC-1 to page 14, reads §11.4 herself, and decides whether the payment cycle changes what she approves next.