Data provenance
Linking every claim to the exact row it came from.
Citations are a start. Provenance is the rest. A citation says 'here's a source.' Provenance says 'here's the exact row, here's the exact SQL, here's the value at the time I pulled it.' The difference is the difference between a blog post and a spreadsheet.
This is the pattern where trust compounds fastest. Every number in the answer has a dotted underline; hover reveals the source. Phrases without provenance wear their honesty openly: a dashed underline and a small question mark. The reader audits the answer at their own pace, without leaving the page.
"A claim without a clickable source is a rumor in a serif font."
Dotted underline. Hover for the row. SQL on tap.
Every numeric claim gets a dotted brass underline. Hovering reveals the source: table, row identifier, exact value, and the SQL that produced it. A toggle at the top switches between inline mode and side-by-side (answer + source). Phrases the model couldn't source get a dashed red underline, honest about their state.
Enterprise revenue grew to $4.72M in Q2, up 14.2% quarter-over-quarter. The margin, however, compressed by 130 basis points, which historical analysis? suggests is driven by mix.
Every figure has a clickable row behind it. Unverified phrases wear their dashed underline honestly.
Every figure is a promise. Provenance is how you keep it.
The best analysts in every company are fluent in one habit: they cite their source the moment they say a number. Models rarely do this unprompted. When a product enforces provenance, it doesn't just increase trust. It changes the shape of the conversation. Users start asking deeper questions because they know the answers are auditable.
Provenance that respects the reader.
- Underline the verifiable. Dotted for sourced, dashed for unverified. The reader should be able to tell at a glance which figures to trust.
- Hover, don't leave. The reader should never have to open a new tab to verify. Keep the audit trail inline.
- Expose the SQL. Numerate users love it. Non-numerate users ignore it. Either way, the option to verify the query is part of the honesty.
Provenance that decorates without verifying.
Some products underline every number but link to a page instead of a row. Others show a source tooltip that repeats the number without the lineage. Both teach users to stop checking. Real provenance is a constraint on the generator: if it can't source, it can't claim.
What this pattern gets wrong when it gets wrong.
- Ghost citation
- A source is shown but doesn't actually back the claim, or links to a page that doesn't contain the quoted text.
- Unverified claim
- A figure or fact presented without provenance, in a place where the reader will treat it as cited.
- Citation overload
- So many citations that the user stops reading them, which defeats the purpose of having them at all.
Three shipping variants worth copying.
- Every numeric claim has a dotted underline; hover shows the source row
- A side-by-side 'answer | source' toggle in the header
- Claims without provenance get an explicit 'unverified' badge