/grounded-citations

name: grounded-citations
description: "Ground answers and documents in cited, verifiable sources."
version: 1.2.0
author: Hermes Agent + Teknium
license: MIT
platforms: [linux, macos, windows]
metadata:
  hermes:
    tags: [Research, Citations, Grounding, Sources, Web, Reports]
    category: research
    related_skills: [arxiv, pdf, reddit-reading, rss-feeds, youtube-content]

Grounded Citations

Every claim taken from an outside source gets an inline numbered citation and a `Sources:` list, Perplexity-style. A ledger script owns the `url → [n]` mapping so the numbers and URLs come from retrieval, never from memory — the model only ever emits small integers it was handed.

For high-stakes work the same ledger doubles as a fact-checking chain: verbatim quotes are attached to each source (rejected unless they literally appear in the fetched page text), claims from model knowledge are flagged `[unverified]`, and `verify --evidence` fails any draft whose cited sources carry no evidence.

This skill covers answers in chat, written documents (markdown, PDF, docx, slides), and research reports. It does not cover academic BibTeX pipelines — for conference papers use the `arxiv` skill, which this skill feeds (see `references/citation-formats.md`).

When to Use

Use whenever an answer or artifact rests on information you fetched rather than knew:

• Research, comparisons, news summaries, "what is the current state of X"
• Any deliverable you write to disk that quotes, paraphrases, or reports

outside facts — reports, briefs, docs, decks, wiki pages

• Fact-finding where the user will want to check your work
• Multi-source synthesis where conflicting sources must be attributed

Skip inline citations when the retrieval is incidental to another task — a quick syntax/version lookup mid-coding, casual conversation, creative writing. Mention a URL only if the user would plausibly want the link.

Prerequisites

None beyond the standard toolset. `scripts/sources.py` is stdlib-only Python 3. Retrieval comes from whatever is configured: `web_search`, `web_extract`, `browser_navigate`, or `terminal` (curl, CLIs).

Ledger location: `$HERMES_HOME/cache/citations/ledger.json` (profile-aware). Override per task with `--ledger <path>` or `HERMES_CITATION_LEDGER`.

How to Run

S=~/.hermes/skills/research/grounded-citations/scripts/sources.py

python "$S" reset                                  # start a clean ledger
python "$S" add https://example.com/a --title "A"  # prints: [1]
python "$S" add https://example.com/b --title "B"  # prints: [2]
python "$S" list                                   # ledger table
python "$S" render                                 # Sources: block
python "$S" verify draft.md                        # catch bad citations

`add` is idempotent and URL-normalized: the same page always returns the same id within a ledger, so ids stay stable across many search/extract rounds.

Quick Reference

| Action | Command | |---|---| | Fresh ledger for a new task | `sources.py reset` | | Register a source, get its id | `sources.py add <url> [--title T]` | | Register several at once | `sources.py add <url1> <url2> ...` | | Register from JSON tool output | `sources.py ingest results.json` | | Attach verbatim evidence to a source | `sources.py quote <id> --text "exact wording" --from page.txt` | | Show ledger | `sources.py list [--json]` | | Render the Sources block | `sources.py render [--style markdown\|plain\|footnotes\|bibtex\|evidence] [--only 1,3]` | | Render only what a draft cites | `sources.py render --cited-in draft.md` | | Rewrite a draft's Sources block in place | `sources.py render --replace-in draft.md` | | Check a draft's citations | `sources.py verify draft.md [--strict] [--min-coverage 0.6] [--evidence]` |

Procedure

① **Reset the ledger** at the start of a task that will produce a grounded answer or document. Skip the reset when continuing work whose ids are already in a draft — reusing the ledger keeps the numbering stable.

② **Register every source at retrieval time.** After each `web_search` / `web_extract` / `browser_navigate` / fetch, pass the URLs to `sources.py add` (or pipe the raw JSON through `sources.py ingest`). Do this *before* writing prose. Registering later, from memory, is the failure mode this skill exists to prevent.

③ **Write cite-while-drafting.** Place the bracketed id(s) immediately after each sentence the source supports:

Ice floats because it is less dense than liquid water.[1][2]

• No space before the bracket; each id in its own brackets.
• Max 3 ids per sentence. Cite per sentence, not one dump at the end.
• Only ids the ledger returned. Never invent an id or a URL.
• Claims from your own knowledge get no citation.
• Conflicting sources: present both readings, each with its own id.
• Quote exact figures, dates, and names as the source states them; flag gaps

explicitly ("no source found for X") instead of smoothing them over.

④ **Append the Sources block** with `sources.py render --cited-in <draft>` so the id → URL mapping is generated mechanically from the ledger, not retyped. For non-markdown targets pick the matching `--style` and follow `references/citation-formats.md` for placement (footnotes in docx, endnotes in PDF/LaTeX, a Sources slide in decks, per-page source lists in wiki output).

⑤ **Verify before delivering** — `sources.py verify <draft>` exits non-zero on unknown ids, on a Sources block that disagrees with the ledger, or (with `--min-coverage`) on prose that is too thinly cited. Fix and re-run.

⑥ **Chat answers** follow the same steps with the draft in your reply: register sources, cite inline, end with the rendered `Sources:` list. For a short answer you may render the block from `sources.py render --only <ids>` instead of writing to a file.

Multi-Platform Sweeps

"What are people saying about X" / "research X across the web" is not one `web_search`. Fan out across source types, collect in