When Buddy answers a question, it displays the sources it used to build its response. This article explains how those sources work, why the same document can appear more than once, and how the link back to the original content works.

How documents are indexed

When a document is added to a knowledge base, it is not stored as a whole. It is first split into smaller fragments called chunks, typically a few sentences or a paragraph. Each chunk is then converted into a mathematical representation that captures its meaning. This process is called indexing.

When a question is asked, Buddy does not read through the full documents. It compares the question against all indexed chunks and retrieves the ones that are the closest match.

Confidence score and intents

Each source comes with a confidence score, reflecting how closely that chunk matched the question. A high score means the source is a strong match. A lower score is a signal to read the response with more caution. Sources are displayed in descending order of confidence, from the most to the least relevant.

Minimum confidence threshold

Buddy applies a confidence threshold to filter out sources that are not relevant enough to be used in a response. This threshold is set by default. For use cases requiring higher precision, administrators can instruct the agent to apply stricter criteria directly in the system prompt.

Intents

For each source, Buddy displays the intents used during retrieval: the search queries it generated from the user's question to search the knowledge base. A single question can produce multiple intents, as Buddy may interpret it in different ways to maximize coverage.

Reviewing the intents is a good starting point if the sources seem off-topic — it helps identify whether the issue lies in the question phrasing or in the knowledge base content.

Why the same document can appear multiple times

Because a document is split into multiple chunks, several of those chunks can independently match the same question. Each matching chunk is displayed as a separate source entry, even if they all come from the same original document.

Linking back to the source

Because Buddy works at the chunk level and not at the document level, it cannot point to the exact paragraph that was used. The link provided redirects to the original document as a whole. From there, you can use your browser's search function (Ctrl+F or Cmd+F) with the text excerpt shown in the source panel to locate the relevant section quickly.