Fable Brain

Citation Discipline

5 min read

Citation Discipline

Two citation regimes govern this brain: on claude.ai, Fable 5 must wrap every search-derived claim in cite tags and paraphrase it, and inside this vault, every sourced statement must carry a URL or corpus line reference plus a date.

What it is

  • The claude.ai regime: the export’s citation_instructions require that “EVERY specific claim in the answer that follows from the search results” be wrapped in cite tags (System Prompt Export 2026-07, L3715-3727).
  • The vault regime: this brain’s own law that a Sources entry without a date is invalid, corpus claims carry line references in the L123-145 format, and claims sourced only from the export are marked as evidence of that capture, not universal truth (the confidence tags reference, dated 2026-07-07).
  • Both regimes exist to make claims auditable: the harness ties answers to retrieved documents, the vault ties notes to dated, re-checkable evidence.

How it works

  • Cite tag mechanics: each tag’s index attribute encodes document and sentence spans in DOC_INDEX-START:END form, using the minimum sentences needed to support the claim (System Prompt Export 2026-07, L3715-3727).
  • Scope exclusion: content from document_context is never cited; cite tags apply to search results only (System Prompt Export 2026-07, L3715-3727).
  • Paraphrase mandate: “Claims must be in your own words, never exact quoted text” (System Prompt Export 2026-07, L3729-3735); citation grants attribution, not permission to reproduce source wording, even short phrases.
  • Vault mechanics: every note’s Sources section lists dated entries; a docs citation looks like https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/models/overview (retrieved 2026-07-07), and a corpus citation looks like System Prompt Export 2026-07, L3715-3727.
  • Confidence coupling: a claim backed only by the export is EVIDENCE-BASED as primary capture evidence with a mandatory line reference; a claim corroborated by a dated public Anthropic URL is EVIDENCE-BASED outright; export-versus-docs conflicts are CONTESTED with a contradiction callout (the confidence tags reference, dated 2026-07-07).
  • Quote ceiling: verbatim quotes in vault notes stay under 15 words whether the source is the corpus or the web, and web quotes always travel with their URL (wiki/meta/CONVENTIONS.md, dated 2026-07-07).
  • Corroboration habit: this brain’s verified claim packs record a second source per claim where one exists, so notes can cite the strongest locator and keep a fallback.
  • Staleness: anything past its refresh_due date in the source ledger must be re-verified before being cited as current.

Key insight

The two regimes converge on one principle: a claim without a locator and a date is not knowledge, it is rumor. The harness enforces this with cite tags at answer time; the vault enforces it with lint gates at commit time.

Best practice

  • In this vault, never write a Sources entry without both a locator (URL or line reference) and a date; undated citations fail the lint gate. EVIDENCE-BASED
  • Attribute corpus quotes exactly as System Prompt Export 2026-07, L-, and keep them at 15 words or fewer. EVIDENCE-BASED
  • Say which harness a corpus claim describes (claude.ai) whenever citing the export, because the capture binds one surface only. EVIDENCE-BASED
  • When claude.ai answers from search, expect paraphrased cited claims; do not prompt it to quote sources verbatim, the instructions forbid that. EVIDENCE-BASED
  • Prefer a dated docs.claude.com or anthropic.com URL over any secondary blog when both support the same claim. PRACTITIONER
  • On an export-versus-docs conflict, cite both, tag the claim CONTESTED, and add a contradiction callout in the owning note. EVIDENCE-BASED
  • Date vault-internal laws the same way: cite CONVENTIONS and CONFIDENCE_TAGS with their updated dates so policy claims stay re-checkable. PRACTITIONER

Pitfalls

  • Trusting an undated retrieval: Anthropic docs pages change, and a URL without a retrieval date cannot be re-verified honestly.
  • Citing the export for current behavior without noting it is a 2026-06-09 claude.ai snapshot; the lineup it lists is already stale.
  • Expecting cite tags in API or Claude Code output; the citation_instructions are claude.ai harness rules from the capture.
  • Quoting a source inside a cited claim on claude.ai; the paraphrase mandate makes quoted cited text a rule violation.
  • Letting a source pass its refresh_due date and continuing to cite it as current; staleness silently downgrades the whole note.
  • Citing an intermediate research pack instead of the underlying source; notes must carry the original URL or line reference so the chain stays auditable.

Sources

  • System Prompt Export 2026-07, L3715-3727, L3729-3735 (claims extracted 2026-07-07)
  • Vault law: the confidence tags reference, assignment policy (dated 2026-07-07)
  • Vault law: wiki/meta/CONVENTIONS.md, body contract and maintenance law (dated 2026-07-07)
  • Claude Platform Docs, Models overview, https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/models/overview (retrieved 2026-07-07), worked example of a dated citation

Next actions

  • Confirm the source ledger has refresh_due entries for every URL cited in this note’s cluster.
  • Extract the full citation_instructions block into the owning export chapter with complete line coverage.
  • Spot-check three vault notes for undated Sources entries and fix any found.
  • Probe a live claude.ai search answer and record whether cite-tag behavior matches the L3715-3727 capture.

Graph View

Backlinks