/evidence-citations

name: evidence-citations
scope: common
description: Build source-backed research answers and documents with a task-isolated citation ledger, verified quotations, and explicit evidence gaps.
license: MIT
metadata:
  nativeReplaces: [grounded-citations]
  upstream: Hermes Agent skills/research/grounded-citations at 1a1f4a59e2

Evidence Citations

Use for research, comparisons, reports, and factual document generation. Retrieve through the available ingest/browser tools; a URL alone is not evidence. Read the actual source and distinguish its claims from your inference.

Resolve `scripts/sources.py` relative to this installed skill directory. Always pass an absolute, task-specific `--ledger <scratch-dir>/citations.json`. For Hermes, obtain the current scratch directory from execution context. Never reset a profile-global ledger or another task's ledger. Resume an existing ledger when continuing the same task.

1. Register retrieved URLs with `sources.py --ledger <path> add <url> --title <title>`. 2. Store fetched text in task scratch. Attach exact supporting quotations with `quote <id> --text <quote> --from <source-file>`; fabricated quotes fail. 3. Write a Markdown draft using the returned numeric citation IDs. Unknown facts stay unresolved; preserve contradictory sources. 4. Append the source list from `render --cited-in <draft>` to the draft. 5. Run `verify <draft> --strict --evidence`. This checks citation consistency and attached quotations, not whether a source is truthful or entails a claim. Add `--min-coverage 1` when every claim needs declared provenance; CJK claims are counted, and an unmeasurable draft fails rather than reporting coverage. Only numeric `[n]` Markdown is verified; footnotes/LaTeX require their own checks. 6. For PKF, map verified ledger URLs to the citation format in pkf-writing; run the PKF validator separately. Do not claim the Markdown checker validates PKF. 7. Deliver requested files through assets/office-artifacts and cloud deliver. A short chat answer can cite the same verified sources inline.

No credentials are needed by the ledger. Missing retrieval tools are a coverage blocker, not a reason to fabricate sources. See references/citation-formats.md and references/grounding-rationale.md for background; this task-isolation and Prismer delivery contract takes precedence over upstream host-specific examples.

`render --replace-in` replaces only one unambiguous terminal Sources section and writes atomically. Fenced examples remain untouched; a non-terminal or duplicate heading fails without modifying the draft. A lock timeout is a failure, not permission to delete another writer's lock or continue without exclusivity.