The problem
Without provenance, a team may know an answer was wrong but not which source, chunk, filter, cache, watermark, or omission caused it.
Symptoms
Signals that the issue is happening in production, not just in a benchmark.
The answer includes citations, but no runtime evidence about freshness or scope.
Logs show a model output but not the exact retrieved packet.
Source documents changed and nobody can tell whether the agent saw old or new context.
Debugging requires rebuilding the retrieval path by hand.
How KyroDB solves
KyroDB solves this at the runtime boundary before prompt assembly.
KyroDB ContextItems include source and provenance fields.
ContextPacket records trace id, warnings, omissions, status, and freshness proof.
Trace diagnosis and proof bundles make provenance shareable without exposing raw secrets.
Replay workflows compare what changed across retrieval candidates.
Implementation
Practical steps for teams already using an agent backend, vector store, or RAG pipeline.
- 01
Store trace ids alongside model responses and user-visible actions.
- 02
Expose provenance internally for operators, not necessarily directly to every end user.
- 03
Use proof reports for customer, compliance, or design-partner reviews.
- 04
Keep raw credentials and runtime tokens out of the browser.
When not to use it
If responses are not grounded in external context and do not affect users, formal provenance may be unnecessary.
Are citations the same as provenance?
No. Citations point to sources. Provenance also captures retrieval evidence: freshness, scope, omissions, warnings, ranking, and traceability.
Why do omissions matter for provenance?
Omissions show what the runtime excluded and why, which is often the fastest way to diagnose stale, filtered, duplicate, or budget-limited context.