Citations

Key Concepts: AI Citations Feature

• Purpose of Citations: To provide transparency by allowing the AI (Claude) to reference external sources for its answers, ensuring users can verify the information.
• Enabling Citations:
• The prompt must be modified to include a source field (e. g. , the file name).
• A citations field must be added, configured as a dictionary with enabled: true.
• Citing from PDF Documents:
• The response structure becomes more complex, with text blocks containing a citations list.
• Citation Page Location: This object specifies the exact source of the fact, including:
• cited_text: The specific text from the source document.
• document_index and document_title: Identifies the source document.
• start_page and end_page: Pinpoints the location within the document.
• Citing from Plain Text:
• The feature is not restricted to PDFs; it works with plain text input.
• Citation Character Location: Instead of page numbers, this location provides a specific position inside the large block of plain text that the AI is citing.
• Application: The citation data allows developers to build user interfaces (e. g. , pop-up tooltips) that inform the user exactly where the AI derived its information, enabling source verification.
• Recommendation: The citations feature should be used whenever it is critical that users can investigate how the AI built its response and confirm its information is drawn from a verifiable source (PDF or plain text).

Takeaways

• AI Citations provide transparency by allowing the AI to reference and verify external sources for its answers.
• Enabling the feature requires modifying the prompt to include a source field and setting the citations dictionary to enabled: true.
• PDF citations pinpoint facts using cited_text, document identifiers, and specific page ranges (start_page to end_page).
• Plain text citations use a specific character location within the input block instead of page numbers.
• The feature is recommended whenever users must be able to investigate and confirm the source of the AI's information.