How Atlas grounds answers in sources

When you ask Atlas a question, the useful part is not merely the answer. You also need to see which project evidence supports it. Atlas grounds a response by retrieving material from the active project's sources and notes, drafting from that material, and attaching citations to important claims.

Grounding begins before chat

Atlas can retrieve evidence only after a source finishes processing. For a PDF, processing extracts text and associates passages with locations in the file. A website import captures the page's main content. A YouTube import depends on the available transcript.

If an import fails or omits content, chat cannot retrieve or cite the missing material. Check the source before relying on answers about it.

Retrieval narrows the context

Most projects contain more material than one answer can use. Atlas searches the active project for relevant passages, notes, source metadata, and other available context.

Question wording changes that search. A focused question gives Atlas a specific claim, method, source, or comparison to find. An @ mention narrows the search to the source, note, or artifact you selected.

Generation uses retrieved evidence

Atlas then drafts from the retrieved material. A grounded answer should:

• answer the question asked
• use the retrieved project context
• cite important claims
• avoid stronger claims than the sources support
• acknowledge when evidence is missing or conflicting.

Citations make the answer inspectable

A citation badge opens the source passage associated with a claim. Read the surrounding paragraph or page before using the answer in a note, report, or decision. The wider context shows whether the passage supports the wording and strength of the claim.

Why grounding can still fail

Grounding reduces unsupported answers, but it does not guarantee that every response is correct. Problems can still happen when:

• the source was not imported
• the source failed processing
• the question is too broad
• retrieval found the wrong passage
• the source itself is ambiguous
• the answer overstates weak evidence
• citations point to related but insufficient context.

When that happens, narrow the question, name the source, ask for cited evidence, or inspect the source manually.

How to get better grounded answers

The strongest prompts are specific about evidence and scope:

• "Using only the uploaded paper, what evidence supports X?"
• "Compare Source A and Source B on this claim."
• "Cite each bullet."
• "If the sources do not answer this, say so."

Use grounded chat to locate and compare evidence. Keep the cited source open for the final judgment.