AI Interfaces block

Nothing Found, Answered Honestly

The refusal screen: says plainly that nothing was found, shows where it looked and the near-misses below threshold, and offers the two real ways out instead of inventing an answer.

180 lineslucide-reactAdded 13 Aug 2026Updated 2 Sept 2026

empty state
no results
rag
refusal
honesty

What's included

components/retrieval-empty-state.tsx
Needs lucide-react

Works with

React
Next.js
Tailwind CSS
TypeScript

npx hoverlab add retrieval-empty-state

Or over MCP, from your editor's agent — no account needed.

License

Free to read, copy and install, for personal and non-commercial projects. Shipping it in client work or a paid product needs Pro ($79 once). The source lands in your repo and stops being ours — no attribution, nothing to upgrade.

Was this useful?

Start a page with this section — add more, order them, and leave with the page source.

Preview

I could not find this in anything I can read.

Rather than guess at a number that has to be exact, here is where I looked and what came closest.

what is our EU VAT registration number

Searched

Company handbook214 documents· 0 matches
Analytics warehouse18 tables· 0 matches
help.acme.com480 pages· 0 matches

Closest, but below the threshold

Tax registrations usually live in the finance drive, which is not connected.

Rendered live in your current theme — this is the same component whose source is below, not a screenshot of it.

Source

components/retrieval-empty-state.tsx

/**
 * <RetrievalEmptyState> — what an assistant says when it found nothing, and
 * refuses to invent an answer.
 *
 * The most valuable screen in a RAG product and the one nobody designs. The
 * default failure is a model that pads the gap with something plausible; the
 * design job is to make "I don't know" feel like competence rather than a
 * dead end.
 *
 * Structure of an honest miss:
 *
 *  1. Say plainly that nothing was found — not "no results", which reads as
 *     a broken search.
 *  2. Show *where it looked*, so the user can see the gap is in coverage
 *     rather than in the question. This is what converts frustration into a
 *     next action.
 *  3. Offer the near-misses that scored too low to use, with their scores,
 *     rather than discarding them silently.
 *  4. Offer the two real ways out: broaden the search, or connect the source
 *     that would have had the answer.
 *
 * `role="status"`, not `role="alert"` — an empty result is information, not
 * an emergency, and assertive announcements interrupt whatever the user is
 * reading. The heading is the first thing in the region so it is what gets
 * read.
 */

import * as React from 'react'
import { Database, FileQuestion, FileText, Globe, Plus, RefreshCw, Search } from 'lucide-react'

export interface SearchedScope {
  id: string
  label: string
  detail: string
  kind: 'doc' | 'table' | 'web'
}

export interface NearMiss {
  id: string
  title: string
  score: number
}

export interface RetrievalEmptyStateProps {
  query?: string
  headline?: string
  body?: string
  searched?: SearchedScope[]
  nearMisses?: NearMiss[]
  /** The gap the user could close, named specifically. */
  suggestion?: string
  className?: string
}

const KIND_ICON = {
  doc: FileText,
  table: Database,
  web: Globe,
} as const

const DEFAULT_SEARCHED: SearchedScope[] = [
  { id: '1', label: 'Company handbook', detail: '214 documents', kind: 'doc' },
  { id: '2', label: 'Analytics warehouse', detail: '18 tables', kind: 'table' },
  { id: '3', label: 'help.acme.com', detail: '480 pages', kind: 'web' },
]

const DEFAULT_NEAR_MISSES: NearMiss[] = [
  { id: '1', title: 'Refund policy for annual plans', score: 0.31 },
  { id: '2', title: 'Ticket #3820 — chargeback process', score: 0.28 },
]

export function RetrievalEmptyState({
  query = 'what is our EU VAT registration number',
  headline = 'I could not find this in anything I can read.',
  body = 'Rather than guess at a number that has to be exact, here is where I looked and what came closest.',
  searched = DEFAULT_SEARCHED,
  nearMisses = DEFAULT_NEAR_MISSES,
  suggestion = 'Tax registrations usually live in the finance drive, which is not connected.',
  className = '',
}: RetrievalEmptyStateProps) {
  return (
    <section
      role="status"
      className={`mx-auto w-full max-w-xl rounded-2xl border border-border/60 bg-card p-6 ${className}`}
    >
      <div className="text-center">
        <span className="inline-flex h-12 w-12 items-center justify-center rounded-2xl bg-muted text-muted-foreground">
          <FileQuestion aria-hidden className="h-5 w-5" />
        </span>

        {headline ? (
          <h3 data-stress-ignore className="mt-4 text-balance text-base font-semibold">{headline}</h3>
        ) : null}

        <p className="mx-auto mt-2 max-w-sm text-pretty text-sm leading-relaxed text-muted-foreground">
          {body}
        </p>

        <p className="mt-3 inline-flex max-w-full items-center gap-1.5 rounded-full border border-border/60 bg-muted/40 px-2.5 py-1.5">
          <Search aria-hidden className="h-3.5 w-3.5 shrink-0 text-muted-foreground" />
          <span className="min-w-0 truncate font-mono text-xs text-muted-foreground">{query}</span>
        </p>
      </div>

      {/* -- Where it looked --------------------------------------------- */}
      <div className="mt-6">
        <h4 data-stress-ignore className="mb-2 text-xs font-bold uppercase tracking-wider text-muted-foreground">
          Searched
        </h4>
        <ul className="space-y-1.5">
          {searched.map((scope) => {
            const Icon = KIND_ICON[scope.kind]
            return (
              <li
                key={scope.id}
                className="flex items-center gap-2.5 rounded-xl border border-border/60 px-3 py-2 text-xs"
              >
                <Icon aria-hidden className="h-3.5 w-3.5 shrink-0 text-muted-foreground" />
                <span className="min-w-0 flex-1 truncate font-medium">{scope.label}</span>
                <span className="ms-auto shrink-0 text-muted-foreground">{scope.detail}</span>
                <span className="shrink-0 text-muted-foreground">· 0 matches</span>
              </li>
            )
          })}
        </ul>
      </div>

      {/* -- Near misses -------------------------------------------------- */}
      {nearMisses.length > 0 ? (
        <div className="mt-5">
          <h4 data-stress-ignore className="mb-2 text-xs font-bold uppercase tracking-wider text-muted-foreground">
            Closest, but below the threshold
          </h4>
          <ul className="space-y-1.5">
            {nearMisses.map((miss) => (
              <li key={miss.id}>
                <button
                  type="button"
                  className="flex w-full items-center gap-2.5 rounded-xl px-3 py-2 text-start text-xs transition-colors hover:bg-muted focus-visible:outline-none focus-visible:ring-2 focus-visible:ring-ring"
                >
                  <span className="truncate">{miss.title}</span>
                  <span className="ms-auto shrink-0 font-mono text-[11px] tabular-nums text-muted-foreground">
                    {miss.score.toFixed(2)}
                    <span className="sr-only"> similarity, below the 0.45 cutoff</span>
                  </span>
                </button>
              </li>
            ))}
          </ul>
        </div>
      ) : null}

      {/* -- The two ways out --------------------------------------------- */}
      {suggestion ? (
        <p className="mt-5 rounded-xl bg-muted/40 px-3.5 py-2.5 text-xs leading-relaxed text-muted-foreground">
          {suggestion}
        </p>
      ) : null}

      <div className="mt-4 flex flex-col gap-2 sm:flex-row">
        <button
          type="button"
          className="inline-flex flex-1 items-center justify-center gap-1.5 rounded-xl border border-border/60 px-3.5 py-2.5 text-sm font-medium transition-colors hover:bg-muted focus-visible:outline-none focus-visible:ring-2 focus-visible:ring-ring"
        >
          <RefreshCw aria-hidden className="h-4 w-4" />
          Search without the cutoff
        </button>

        <button
          type="button"
          className="inline-flex flex-1 items-center justify-center gap-1.5 rounded-xl bg-primary px-3.5 py-2.5 text-sm font-semibold text-primary-foreground transition-opacity hover:opacity-90 focus-visible:outline-none focus-visible:ring-2 focus-visible:ring-ring focus-visible:ring-offset-2 focus-visible:ring-offset-background"
        >
          <Plus aria-hidden className="h-4 w-4" />
          Connect a source
        </button>
      </div>
    </section>
  )
}

Before you paste

Styling is Tailwind utility classes on semantic tokens (bg-card, text-muted-foreground) — it inherits your theme instead of overriding it.
Install: npm i lucide-react
Every prop has a default, so it renders standalone before you wire it up.

Where it goes

Drop it at components/retrieval-empty-state.tsx and import it where you need the section:

import { RetrievalEmptyState } from '@/components/retrieval-empty-state'

Customize

3 of this block’s props are simple enough to drive from here. Change them and the block below re-renders — it is the same component whose source is above, not a mock of it. Everything else it accepts is in the table underneath.

Props

Read out of the component’s own type and signature, so this cannot drift from the source below. Every prop has a default — the component renders standalone before you pass it anything.

Prop	Type	Default
`query`	`string`	`'what is our EU VAT registration number'`
`headline`	`string`	`'I could not find this in anything I can read.'`
`body`	`string`	—
`searched`	`SearchedScope[]`	`DEFAULT_SEARCHED`
`nearMisses`	`NearMiss[]`	`DEFAULT_NEAR_MISSES`
`suggestion`The gap the user could close, named specifically.	`string`	`'Tax registrations usually live in the financ…`
`className`	`string`	`''`

Not using React?

The same block rendered once to markup, wrapped as a file your framework compiles. Tailwind classes are framework-agnostic, so the design transfers intact — the behaviour does not.

retrieval-empty-state.html

<!--
  Nothing Found, Answered Honestly — markup from the Hoverlab catalog.

  This is the block rendered once to HTML and wrapped as a component
  file. It is not a port of the React source: the Tailwind classes carry
  the design, which is the part that took the work, and they are the same
  in every framework.

  This block has no interactive behaviour, so nothing is missing.
-->
<section role="status" class="mx-auto w-full max-w-xl rounded-2xl border border-border/60 bg-card p-6 ">
  <div class="text-center">
    <span class="inline-flex h-12 w-12 items-center justify-center rounded-2xl bg-muted text-muted-foreground">
      <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-file-question-mark h-5 w-5" aria-hidden="true">
        <path d="M12 17h.01"></path>
        <path d="M15 2H6a2 2 0 0 0-2 2v16a2 2 0 0 0 2 2h12a2 2 0 0 0 2-2V7z"></path>
        <path d="M9.1 9a3 3 0 0 1 5.82 1c0 2-3 3-3 3"></path>
      </svg>
    </span>
    <h3 data-stress-ignore="true" class="mt-4 text-balance text-base font-semibold">I could not find this in anything I can read.</h3>
    <p class="mx-auto mt-2 max-w-sm text-pretty text-sm leading-relaxed text-muted-foreground">Rather than guess at a number that has to be exact, here is where I looked and what came closest.</p>
    <p class="mt-3 inline-flex max-w-full items-center gap-1.5 rounded-full border border-border/60 bg-muted/40 px-2.5 py-1.5">
      <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-search h-3.5 w-3.5 shrink-0 text-muted-foreground" aria-hidden="true">
        <path d="m21 21-4.34-4.34"></path>
        <circle cx="11" cy="11" r="8"></circle>
      </svg>
      <span class="min-w-0 truncate font-mono text-xs text-muted-foreground">what is our EU VAT registration number</span>
    </p>
  </div>
  <div class="mt-6">
    <h4 data-stress-ignore="true" class="mb-2 text-xs font-bold uppercase tracking-wider text-muted-foreground">Searched</h4>
    <ul class="space-y-1.5">
      <li class="flex items-center gap-2.5 rounded-xl border border-border/60 px-3 py-2 text-xs">
        <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-file-text h-3.5 w-3.5 shrink-0 text-muted-foreground" aria-hidden="true">
          <path d="M15 2H6a2 2 0 0 0-2 2v16a2 2 0 0 0 2 2h12a2 2 0 0 0 2-2V7Z"></path>
          <path d="M14 2v4a2 2 0 0 0 2 2h4"></path>
          <path d="M10 9H8"></path>
          <path d="M16 13H8"></path>
          <path d="M16 17H8"></path>
        </svg>
        <span class="min-w-0 flex-1 truncate font-medium">Company handbook</span>
        <span class="ms-auto shrink-0 text-muted-foreground">214 documents</span>
        <span class="shrink-0 text-muted-foreground">· 0 matches</span>
      </li>
      <li class="flex items-center gap-2.5 rounded-xl border border-border/60 px-3 py-2 text-xs">
        <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-database h-3.5 w-3.5 shrink-0 text-muted-foreground" aria-hidden="true">
          <ellipse cx="12" cy="5" rx="9" ry="3"></ellipse>
          <path d="M3 5V19A9 3 0 0 0 21 19V5"></path>
          <path d="M3 12A9 3 0 0 0 21 12"></path>
        </svg>
        <span class="min-w-0 flex-1 truncate font-medium">Analytics warehouse</span>
        <span class="ms-auto shrink-0 text-muted-foreground">18 tables</span>
        <span class="shrink-0 text-muted-foreground">· 0 matches</span>
      </li>
      <li class="flex items-center gap-2.5 rounded-xl border border-border/60 px-3 py-2 text-xs">
        <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-globe h-3.5 w-3.5 shrink-0 text-muted-foreground" aria-hidden="true">
          <circle cx="12" cy="12" r="10"></circle>
          <path d="M12 2a14.5 14.5 0 0 0 0 20 14.5 14.5 0 0 0 0-20"></path>
          <path d="M2 12h20"></path>
        </svg>
        <span class="min-w-0 flex-1 truncate font-medium">help.acme.com</span>
        <span class="ms-auto shrink-0 text-muted-foreground">480 pages</span>
        <span class="shrink-0 text-muted-foreground">· 0 matches</span>
      </li>
    </ul>
  </div>
  <div class="mt-5">
    <h4 data-stress-ignore="true" class="mb-2 text-xs font-bold uppercase tracking-wider text-muted-foreground">Closest, but below the threshold</h4>
    <ul class="space-y-1.5">
      <li>
        <button type="button" class="flex w-full items-center gap-2.5 rounded-xl px-3 py-2 text-start text-xs transition-colors hover:bg-muted focus-visible:outline-none focus-visible:ring-2 focus-visible:ring-ring">
          <span class="truncate">Refund policy for annual plans</span>
          <span class="ms-auto shrink-0 font-mono text-[11px] tabular-nums text-muted-foreground">0.31<span class="sr-only"> similarity, below the 0.45 cutoff</span></span>
        </button>
      </li>
      <li>
        <button type="button" class="flex w-full items-center gap-2.5 rounded-xl px-3 py-2 text-start text-xs transition-colors hover:bg-muted focus-visible:outline-none focus-visible:ring-2 focus-visible:ring-ring">
          <span class="truncate">Ticket #3820 — chargeback process</span>
          <span class="ms-auto shrink-0 font-mono text-[11px] tabular-nums text-muted-foreground">0.28<span class="sr-only"> similarity, below the 0.45 cutoff</span></span>
        </button>
      </li>
    </ul>
  </div>
  <p class="mt-5 rounded-xl bg-muted/40 px-3.5 py-2.5 text-xs leading-relaxed text-muted-foreground">Tax registrations usually live in the finance drive, which is not connected.</p>
  <div class="mt-4 flex flex-col gap-2 sm:flex-row">
    <button type="button" class="inline-flex flex-1 items-center justify-center gap-1.5 rounded-xl border border-border/60 px-3.5 py-2.5 text-sm font-medium transition-colors hover:bg-muted focus-visible:outline-none focus-visible:ring-2 focus-visible:ring-ring"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-refresh-cw h-4 w-4" aria-hidden="true"><path d="M3 12a9 9 0 0 1 9-9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1 6.74 2.74L21 8"></path><path d="M21 3v5h-5"></path><path d="M21 12a9 9 0 0 1-9 9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1-6.74-2.74L3 16"></path><path d="M8 16H3v5"></path></svg>Search without the cutoff</button>
    <button type="button" class="inline-flex flex-1 items-center justify-center gap-1.5 rounded-xl bg-primary px-3.5 py-2.5 text-sm font-semibold text-primary-foreground transition-opacity hover:opacity-90 focus-visible:outline-none focus-visible:ring-2 focus-visible:ring-ring focus-visible:ring-offset-2 focus-visible:ring-offset-background"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-plus h-4 w-4" aria-hidden="true"><path d="M5 12h14"></path><path d="M12 5v14"></path></svg>Connect a source</button>
  </div>
</section>

This is rendered HTML, not a translation of the React source. The Tailwind classes carry the design and work in any framework.
It is one frame: the component in its initial state, with no props applied beyond the defaults.
Requires Tailwind, and the design tokens the classes reference (bg-card, text-muted-foreground, and so on). The template ZIPs ship a globals.css that defines them.

What each framework gets across the whole catalog — effects convert properly; this rung is markup.

For AI

The component, its props, the design tokens it expects and the command that installs it — as one prompt. Paste it into Claude, Cursor, v0 or ChatGPT and what they build around it will match the rest of the catalog instead of inventing its own system.

See the prompt

Used in these pages

Retrieval Console7 blocks

Want the whole screen instead of this one section? Open a page and copy it entire.

8 more blocks in Retrieval & Context

All of them free to read, copy and install — no account, no locked tiles, no watermarked preview. The whole catalog is open, and so are the API and the CLI.

Browse Retrieval & Context

Shipping one commercially

Copying the code is free. Putting it in client work or a paid product is what Pro is for — the licence, not the access.

A commercial licence for everything in the catalog
Unlimited bundle exports, in Vue, Svelte and Tailwind
One payment — no subscription, nothing to renew

Pro — $79 once

More Retrieval & Context blocks

View category

Retrieved context

4 chunks for “why did northwind not get the volume price”, ranked by similarity

Document: Pricing handbook· §4.2 — Volume breaksStrong match0.910.91
Accounts above 1,200 units per order qualify for the tier-two rate of $8.40, held for the duration of the contract year. The break is applied per order, not per quarter, so a single large order beats two smaller ones of the same total volume.
Support ticket: Ticket #4192· Northwind Retail · resolvedPartial match0.780.78
Customer asked why their November order did not get the tier-two price. Their October and November orders were 700 units each — combined they clear the break, individually they do not. Confirmed with finance that this is working as intended.
Table: warehouse.orders· 2,481 rows scannedPartial match0.640.64
Aggregated order volume by account for the trailing four quarters, filtered to accounts with more than one order in the period.
Web page: supplier.example.com· Lead times · fetched todayWeak match0.410.41
Standard lead time for the winter blend is 21 days from purchase order. Expedited shipping is available at a 15% surcharge and reduces this to 9 days.

Retrieved Context Chunks

The RAG debugging surface: ranked passages with similarity as a meter, matched spans in real mark elements, and filter chips wired as a radiogroup so arrows move between them.

Retrieval & Context327 lines1 dep2 Sept

Sources(4)

Database table: Q3 revenue cohortswarehouse.arr_monthly
Supports: The 6.1% churn figure for accounts under 20 seats
2,463 accounts · lost ARR $1.24M · seat_band < 20
Read 2 hours ago
Database table: Activation funnel, Jul–Sepwarehouse.events
Supports: The claim that a second integration predicts retention
Accounts with ≥2 connected sources churned at 1.6%; with 1 source, 6.4%.
Read 2 hours ago
Document: Pricing handbookdocs/pricing-handbook.md
Supports: That the volume break applies per order rather than per quarter
The break is applied per order, not per quarter, so a single large order beats two smaller ones of the same total volume.
Read 4 months ago
This document has changed twice since it was indexed.
Web page: Supplier lead times (opens in a new tab)supplier.example.com
Supports: The 21-day reorder window
Read 2 hours ago

Every figure above traces to one of these. Nothing was inferred without a source.

Answer Source Citations

The published footnotes under an answer — ordered list, real cite and time elements, the claim each source supports, and a staleness warning written in words rather than shown as an amber dot.

Retrieval & Context231 lines1 dep2 Sept

What can the assistant read?

Only selected sources are searched. Everything else stays invisible to it.

Company handbookReadyGoogle Drive · 214 documents
Analytics warehouseReady18 tables · schema only, no row data
product/apiIndexingGitHub · main branch, docs/ and README44%44% indexed — answers from this source will be incomplete until it finishes
help.acme.comReadyCrawled weekly · 480 pages
Contracts archiveFailedSharePoint · 1,902 filesAccess denied — the connector account cannot read this folder.
Design wikiPausedPaused by you on 2 August

Searching 3 sources

Knowledge Source Picker

Choosing what the assistant may read, with indexing state told honestly — a half-indexed source says so rather than showing a green tick — and the footer stating the effect of the selection, not its cardinality.

Retrieval & Context345 lines1 dep2 Sept

Context for this reply

27.0k of 32.0k tokens · 84%

System promptAgent role and house rules1.4k4%
Tool definitions9 tools, JSON schema3.1k10%
ConversationLast 14 turns8.2k26%
refunds-policy.mdWhole file · pinned by you4.8k15%
Q3-support-metrics.csvRows 1–200 of 4,8124.4k14%
escalation-runbook.md3 of 9 sections, ranked by the query2.9k9%
Held for the replyRoom the answer needs2.2k7%

Left out to make it fit

The model did not see any of this. If an answer looks like it ignored a document, start here.

Q3-support-metrics.csv — rows 201–4,812Too large for the window. Only the first 200 rows were sent.96.0k
contract-meridian-2024.pdfRanked 8th; seven chunks fitted. Pin it to force it in.18.3k
Conversation turns 1–6Aged out of the rolling history window.7.1k

Context Window Budget

What is in the context and what fell out of it — a stacked budget with the reply reserve drawn as a segment, and the dropped chunks named with the reason, which is the part nobody ships.

Retrieval & Context309 lines1 dep10 Sept

Knowledge freshness

Answers can only be as current as the source they come from. The oldest connected source was last read 6 weeks ago, so anything changed since then may not be reflected yet.

Help centre
Website · 4 domains
Up to date · last read 11 minutes ago
486 docs
Internal handbook
Notion workspace
Partly indexed · last read 2 hours ago
812 of 1,340 documents searchable — the remaining 528 cannot be cited yet.
1,340 docs
Past tickets
Zendesk · resolved only
Behind · last read 9 days ago
22,190 docs
Policy documents
Google Drive folder
Not syncing · last read 6 weeks ago
The connected account lost access to the folder on 3 August. The 74 documents already indexed are still being answered from, at the age above.
74 docs

Index Freshness Panel

A green tick means the connector works, not that the answers are current. Freshness as an age in words per source, the headline taken from the stalest one, and a failed sync that still says what age it is answering from.

Retrieval & Context246 lines1 dep

How old the sources are

Relevance ranking says which document matched. It says nothing about whether the document is still true, and that is the question a reader has once the answer surprises them.

Retrieval Freshness List

Retrieved sources ranked by how stale they are, because a confident answer from a two-year-old document is the failure people do not catch.

Retrieval & Context151 linesNo deps10 Sept

What it can see

Citations tell you what an answer used. Scope tells you what it could have used, which is the question behind "why did it not know that".

Context Scope List

Which sources this answer may draw on, shown as a scope the user can read before asking rather than a citation list after.

Retrieval & Context152 linesNo deps10 Sept

Grounding

Every claim points at something

The interesting half of a retrieval system is not what it does when it finds the answer. It is what it does when it does not.

Citations on the sentenceNot a source list at the bottom. The claim and its evidence are next to each other or the citation is decoration.
Quoted, not paraphrasedThe retrieved passage is shown as written, so you can see whether it says what the answer claims.
It says when it does not knowNo passage above the relevance floor produces "I could not find this", not a fluent guess.
Stale sources are flaggedAge travels with the passage. A confident answer from a two-year-old document is the failure nobody catches.

Grounding Split

How an answer is tied to its sources, and what the system does when it cannot find any.

Retrieval & Context156 linesNo deps