Quality contracts and evaluation
A quality contract defines what a successful response must satisfy. For example, a knowledge answer may require grounded claims and citations; a structured workflow may require a validated format and a safe response when evidence is insufficient.
Build a contract
- State the use case and accountable owner.
- Define required grounding, freshness, structure, safety and response behaviour.
- Choose an appropriate behaviour for insufficient evidence: clarify, retrieve, escalate, return partial information or refuse.
- Create representative evaluation cases and a baseline.
- Review quality, cost and latency before promoting a change.
Use feedback and evaluation results to improve prompts, routing and policy. Keep promotion accountable and reviewable.