Knowledge Base Use Cases

Whether a knowledge base is reliable does not depend on the amount of material, but on whether the boundaries are clear, the sources are maintainable, and real questions can consistently retrieve the right evidence.

The parameters below are only a starting point. First run through import, retrieval, and usage with 3–10 representative materials, then expand based on a fixed question set.

First design using the same method

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1. Clearly define the final task

Clarify the judgment or deliverable the user needs to make, such as looking up policies, troubleshooting faults, or generating a research report.

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2. Define the material boundaries

Only place materials in the same knowledge base if they should be retrieved together during use. Content with different permissions, lifecycles, product models, or versions should be separated first.

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3. Choose sources and update methods

Specify who maintains documents, notes, directories, and web pages, when they are replaced, and whether historical versions need to be kept.

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4. Prepare validation questions

Prepare 3–10 real questions covering exact facts, conditional rules, colloquial wording, and easily confused versions.

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5. Adjust the retrieval plan

Keep the configuration simple at first. Add embeddings only when BM25 is not enough to handle synonymous expressions; add reranking only when the correct candidate appears but the order is unstable.

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6. Connect to a dialogue or Agent

Use normal conversation for one-shot Q&A; bind an Agent when multi-step research, comparison, and file delivery are needed. Check the sources line by line before going live.

User case 1: Employee policy Q&A

Goal

Let employees look up travel approval, lodging standards, and reimbursement exceptions, and be able to open the sources to verify the original text.

Material organization

• Knowledge base: [Employee Travel Policy]
• Entry: [Business Trip Approval Process]
• Entry: [Lodging Standards Quick Reference]
• Entry: [Travel FAQ]

Policy clauses and FAQs are maintained separately, so updating one does not require redoing all materials.

Recommended configuration

Item	Starting point	When to adjust
Retrieval	Start with BM25	Add embeddings when there is a large difference between employee phrasing and policy wording
Reranking	Do not use for now	Enable when the correct candidate appears but the order is unstable
Material version	Keep only the current version	If historical auditing requires coexistence, include the year in the name
Answer requirements	Separate the conclusion, conditions, and sources	Clearly mark when the material does not specify something

Validation question

1. What is the maximum hotel reimbursement for a business trip?
2. Can overseas car rentals be reimbursed?
3. Who approves when the estimated total cost exceeds 5,000 yuan?
4. What happens if a hotel is booked before approval?

Conversation prompt

Answer only based on the "Employee Travel Policy." Give the conclusion first, then list the applicable conditions and sources; if the material does not explain something, write "not specified in the policy" and do not fill it in with common sense.

When validation passes, the same policy can be hit by both the original wording and colloquial wording of the question, and the amounts, roles, and conditions in the answer can be directly supported by citations.

User case 2: Product after-sales assistant

Goal

Organize official manuals, fault codes, and reviewed cases so customer service can first provide safe, traceable troubleshooting advice.

Material boundaries

Knowledge base or material group	Content	Maintenance principle
Official manual	Specifications, warranty boundaries, standard procedures	Keep the model and document version
Fault code	One fault, one section	Label applicable firmware and device model
Reviewed case	Cases with confirmed causes and solutions	Unreviewed chat logs must not be imported directly

When rules differ significantly across models, split them into separate knowledge bases by model to avoid the same fault code competing with itself.

Retrieval and Agent configuration

• For PDFs, first inspect the table of contents, tables, and two-column body text.
• Fault codes depend on precise terminology, so keep BM25.
• When customer descriptions are more colloquial, add an embedding model.
• Bind the official manual and reviewed cases to the after-sales Agent, and enable only [Knowledge Base Search].

Troubleshoot in three steps based on the device model, fault code, and symptoms. Indicate at each step whether the basis comes from the official manual or reviewed cases. When disassembly, electricity, or data erasure is involved, first warn about the risks and wait for confirmation.

Acceptance criteria

• Do not use steps from other models for the current model.
• Safety warnings appear before the operation steps.
• Official rules and case suggestions are kept separate.
• Hand off to a human when there is no material support; do not guess.

User case 3: Research materials and reports

Goal

Extract verifiable evidence from papers, interview notes, and web snapshots, then have the Agent generate a comparison report with sources.

Material organization

• Build the knowledge base around research questions; do not put all papers into one large repository.
• The file name includes the author, year, and a short title.
• Interview notes should indicate the interviewee's role, date, and whether they can be cited.
• Web materials should record the capture date, because the knowledge base stores imported snapshots.

First validate source coverage in the research repository with fixed questions, then hand it to the Agent for cross-document synthesis.

Agent prompt

Find evidence in the bound research knowledge base for "why users abandon the initial setup." First list the original viewpoints and limitations by source, then synthesize consensus, disagreements, and hypotheses to be verified. Finally generate a Markdown report; do not write inferences as if they were the interviewees' original words.

From evidence to deliverables

Keep the evidence and limitations first, then let the Agent organize them into a report; do not let the finished product obscure the original sources.

Acceptance criteria

• Consensus is supported by at least two independent sources.
• Disagreements retain their own conditions and are not forced to merge.
• Citations, inferences, and recommendations are clearly labeled.
• Web snapshots and paper versions are traceable.

Configuration notes: reusable design table

Item	Questions to answer
Goal	What judgment or result does the user ultimately need to produce?
Boundary	Which materials should be retrieved together, and which must be separated?
Sources	How should files, notes, directories, and web pages be updated?
Parsing	Which types of documents are most prone to OCR, table, or ordering issues?
Retrieval	Is BM25 sufficient? When are embeddings and reranking needed?
Validation question	Which 3–10 questions best represent real usage?
Failure handling	What should be done when there are no results, conflicting versions, or no material support?
Maintenance	Who is responsible for replacing materials, re-indexing, and backups?

Do not treat "imported a lot of material" as the completion criterion. The more material there is, the more explicitly duplicate versions, permission mixing, and noisy competition need to be managed.

Common questions

Should policies, manuals, and cases be placed in the same knowledge base?

Check whether they should be retrieved together in the same question, and whether permissions and update cycles are consistent. When the differences are obvious, splitting the repositories makes it easier to control source boundaries.

Can the case repository directly import all customer service chats?

Not recommended. First review the causes, solutions, and privacy content, and import only confirmed, reusable cases.

What needs to be done before expanding materials?

Keep a fixed set of validation questions, import in batches, and retest. If new materials degrade the results, you can quickly identify which batch caused the issue.

Continue reading

Knowledge base basics

First get creation, import, retrieval, and use working.

Use with Agent

Configure multi-step research and material permissions.

Common questions

Use symptoms to locate materials, retrieve them, or answer questions.