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Grounded Citations — Setup Guide

Source: nousresearch/hermes-agent (22 installs) Category: Research / Quality Assurance License: MIT · Platforms: Linux, macOS, Windows Dependencies: Hermes Agent, web retrieval tools (web_search/web_extract)

Every claim from an outside source gets an inline numbered citation and a Sources: reference list, Perplexity-style. A ledger script owns the url → [n] mapping so numbers and URLs come from retrieval, never from model memory. For high-stakes work, the same ledger doubles as a fact-checking chain — verbatim quotes are verified against source text, and model-knowledge claims are flagged [unverified].

What It Does

Capability How
Inline citations Every external claim gets [n] linking to numbered source
Source ledger url → [n] mapping owned by retrieval, not model memory
Verbatim verification Quotes rejected unless they literally appear in fetched text
Unverified flagging Model-knowledge claims tagged [unverified]
Evidence validation verify --evidence fails drafts with unsupported claims
Multi-format support Works in chat, markdown, PDF, docx, and slides

How It Works

┌──────────────┐     ┌──────────────┐     ┌──────────────┐
│  Research     │────▶│  Source       │────▶│  Output       │
│  Question     │     │  Ledger       │     │  with [n]     │
│               │     │  url → [1..N] │     │  citations    │
└──────────────┘     └──────┬───────┘     └──────┬───────┘
                            │                     │
                   ┌────────▼───────┐    ┌────────▼───────┐
                   │  Fetch pages   │    │  verify         │
                   │  Extract text  │    │  --evidence     │
                   └────────────────┘    └────────────────┘

Installation

npx skills add https://github.com/nousresearch/hermes-agent --skill grounded-citations

Direct from Hermes Agent Repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/nousresearch/hermes-agent.git /tmp/hermes-agent
cp -r /tmp/hermes-agent/skills/research/grounded-citations ~/.hermes/skills/

Basic Usage

Research with citations

> Load grounded-citations skill
> Research: What's the current state of RAG retrieval techniques?
> Use grounded citations

Hermes will search, fetch pages, extract text, and produce:

Recent advances in RAG retrieval have shifted toward agentic
multi-step retrieval [1] and hybrid dense-sparse approaches [2].
ColBERT-style late interaction has shown 15-20% improvement over
single-vector methods on the BEIR benchmark [3].

Sources:
[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.xxxxx — "Agentic RAG: A Survey"
[2] https://blog.langchain.dev/... — Hybrid Search in Production
[3] https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.12832 — ColBERT (original paper)

Verify existing content

> Verify the citations in /home/user/report.md --evidence

This checks every [n] citation — if a claim doesn't trace to source text, it fails.

Citation Format Examples

In chat: 

...as demonstrated by Smith et al. [1].

In markdown: 

...as demonstrated by Smith et al. [^1].

[^1]: https://example.com/paper — "Title Here" (2024)

In documents (PDF/docx): Superscript numbers with endnote-style source list.

When to Use vs When Not

✅ Use For ❌ Don't Use For
Research reports & briefings Casual conversation
Factual claims about the world Personal opinions/advice
Content for publication Creative writing
Stakeholder-facing documents When speed matters more than accuracy
Academic or professional writing Model self-knowledge about its own capabilities

Integration with Other Skills

Skill How It Integrates
research-paper-writing Feeds citation chain into academic paper pipeline
arxiv Auto-cites arXiv papers with proper BibTeX-ready references
web-search-duckduckgo Primary retrieval source for web citations
blogwatcher Citations from blog monitoring feeds

Tips

  • Trust the ledger, not memory: The url → [n] mapping is deterministic — model never invents URLs
  • Verbatim quotes only: If the text isn't literally in the fetched page, the citation fails
  • [unverified] is honest: Better to flag model knowledge than fabricate a source
  • Re-run verify --evidence after edits: Adding/removing claims may break citation chains
  • Use with research-paper-writing for academic work: This skill handles web citations; that skill adds BibTeX and formatting

Troubleshooting

Problem Likely Cause Fix
All citations flagged [unverified] Web retrieval tools down Check web_search/web_extract availability
"Evidence verification failed" Source page changed since fetch Re-fetch and re-verify
Missing citations in output Skill not loaded before research Load skill before starting research
Too many citations Model over-citing Narrow scope or use --citation-density low

← Skills Catalog | nousresearch/hermes-agent on skills.sh

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