The decision
Treat the model as one component inside a workflow with a defined contract. The model may produce fluent text even when input is incomplete or contradictory. Your application must decide what is allowed, what can be checked automatically, and when it should ask a person to intervene.
A worked example
For an update draft, the contract includes approved notes, a target audience, and a maximum output length. Each factual sentence must identify supporting source text. If dates conflict, the output should flag the conflict instead of choosing one. The final action remains a human approval step.
How to put it into practice
- List required fields and reject missing essential evidence before making a model call.
- Define a bounded output format with explicit empty and uncertain states.
- Validate the output independently of the instructions sent to the model.
- Keep approval separate from generation when the result can affect customers or external systems.
A failure to plan for
A model instruction saying “never invent facts” is not a verification mechanism. Build checks and user-visible source references that make unsupported output discoverable.
Try it on your project
Write an input/output contract for one feature. Include empty input, conflicting input, a requested unsupported claim, and a provider failure. Decide which cases fail early and which return a reviewable draft.
Keep the next step small
Use the free demand scorecard or planning tools to make your assumptions explicit. The $19 launch kit brings the blueprint and seven editable worksheets together.