Ground an AI agent by defining the answer it should produce, giving it a small set of current sources with clear owners, and testing how it handles gaps and disagreements. Retrieval can connect an answer to supplied information; it does not prove that the sources are complete or that the answer is correct.
Fictional example: Cedarline Property Services asks, “Tell our maintenance lead whether after-hours visits are included for the Brookfield site. Use the approved service standard and location schedule, then prepare a short reply. Do not promise a visit time.” The requested result is a sourced draft, not a booking.
The diagram separates the kinds of resources that support a grounded answer.
Define what the agent must answer
Turn the request into a question that can be checked: Does the current service standard include after-hours visits, and does the Brookfield schedule identify an exception? Tell the agent what counts as an answer, what it may do, and where it must stop. In this example, it can read approved service documents and draft a reply. It cannot invent availability, schedule a technician, or change the policy.
This boundary matters because “use our knowledge” is too broad. A team may have many documents with different audiences, dates, and authority. Granting access to every file makes it harder to know which one supports an answer and whether the agent should use it.
Choose sources people can maintain
For Cedarline, the fictional approved source set is deliberately small:
Scroll horizontally to see all columns.
| Approved source | Owner | Authority and scope | Freshness evidence | Refresh trigger |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| After-hours service standard | Operations lead | Sets service-wide rules: urgent visits are allowed; routine work is scheduled during business hours. | Effective July 1, 2026; confirm this is still the approved version. | A policy revision or the owner's review date becoming due. |
| Brookfield location schedule | Regional coordinator | Lists site-specific exceptions; none are listed for Brookfield in this example. | Reviewed in September 2026; confirm there is no newer approved schedule. | A schedule or site change, or its next review date. |
The standard governs the service itself; the location schedule can narrow availability at one site. Neither source authorizes a particular appointment. A public page or private file is not authoritative just because search returns it. Record each source's audience and version, decide which approved source takes precedence if documents disagree, and keep active material separate from archived copies and drafts.
Make retrieved passages easy to check
Organize information so a lookup can return a relevant passage with its source identity. Depending on the system, useful controls may include clear headings, small topic-focused documents, metadata for location or effective date, and filters that limit the search scope. These are design options, not features every agent platform provides.
Ask the agent to preserve enough source detail for a person to check its claim: document name, section, date, or a direct passage when the interface supports it. Keep the source separate from the generated wording. If retrieval returns no useful passage, the answer should say what it could not confirm and ask for help or route the question to the source owner.
Test real questions and failure cases
Prepare representative questions before the workflow goes live. Include a direct question, a paraphrase, an ambiguous location, an outdated source, conflicting documents, and a question outside the approved scope. For each one, write the expected answer or safe response and the evidence that should support it. A successful lookup on one example does not establish reliable performance across the set.
For Cedarline, the test set should include Brookfield and another site with different hours. One case should use an archived schedule; another should ask for an exact arrival time. On the stated sources, the completed draft is:
Reply to the maintenance lead: “The service standard allows after-hours visits for urgent incidents. It schedules routine work during business hours, and the Brookfield schedule lists no additional exception. No visit time has been confirmed.”
The agent has compared the current standard with the site schedule and drafted a bounded answer. It has not booked or dispatched anyone. Review whether the cited passages support every sentence.
Set a rule for change and disagreement
Name the person who updates each source and the signal that triggers a refresh: a policy change, a new location, an expired review date, or repeated questions the sources cannot answer. Define what happens when the sources conflict. The agent should identify the conflict and route it to an owner; it should not resolve policy by guessing or blending two versions.
Start with knowledge, skills, tools, and connections, then review permissions and boundaries. Use agent evaluation to test retrieval and answers as the source set changes.