Provenance
Also: source provenance
The record of where a piece of information came from and how it got here.
The fuller definition
Provenance records where information came from and how it was transformed, supporting traceability to original material.
Delivery may be possible in the first week of April, subject to inspection.
Delivery was promised on 1 April.
The output changes certainty, invents a specific day, and loses a condition. A link to the real source makes checking possible; it does not make that summary accurate.
A concrete example
A chronology row records the source file, page, quoted passage, and extraction version.
The distinction that matters
A source link establishes a route for checking; it does not itself establish that the proposition follows.
Related terms
Citation
A pointer to the source that supports a statement, so someone can check it.
Documents & retrievalMetadata
Information about a file rather than its contents, such as its author, date, and page count.
Documents & retrievalGrounding
Basing an answer on a named source or set of facts. A link to a source does not prove the answer follows from it.
Where it is taught
How document-grounded AI answers workSource and further reading
Sentence Transformers · Semantic searchThe definition and example are written for this library. The link gives background, official documentation or legal authority as labelled. Legal scope depends on the jurisdiction and current text; product features depend on release and settings.