VP-Sources answer-footer doctrine

Advisory doctrine embedded in 5 MCP tool descriptions requiring source citation in the answer footer.

VP-Sources answer-footer doctrine

What this doctrine says

Each of the 5 covered tools embeds two verbatim doctrine paragraphs appended after the existing tool description:

VP-Sources doctrine: MUST be called before any factual claim about fleet state, audits, dette tooling, mission/task/client status, incident history, doctrine references.

Cite returned ids in the answer footer as VP-Sources: recall("<q>")→[ids] | none-needed:<reason>.

These two strings appear verbatim in every covered tool's description field. Any MCP client that requests the tool list receives them inline — no additional system prompt injection is required.

Why

MCP clients receive the full tool list (names + descriptions) in a single response before the first tool call. Embedding the doctrine there means any agent that calls one of the 5 covered tools has already been instructed about the citation obligation at tool-list time.

The alternative — adding the rule to a system prompt — requires every client deployment to be updated independently. Inline embedding is deployment-agnostic: it travels with the tool definition.

Tools covered

The following 5 tools carry the VP-Sources doctrine strings as of PR-H (T-GREEN 908fd67):

Each constant is exported from mcp-server/src/tools.ts and tested with a snapshot assertion in mcp-server/src/__tests__/tools-descriptions.test.ts.

Footer format

When a search tool returns results the agent must cite them in the final answer footer.

Full citation (sources found):

VP-Sources: recall("Pi feedback rules")→[j57dy3049btafda9m2f5d2ggk987ph3f, j572s2bh4e0n20n0ttxynwrnts891nb5]

No search needed:

VP-Sources: none-needed:trivial code edit

Worked example — an agent answers a question about current mission status:

1. Agent calls recall with query="VP-MCP top level Bloc A mission status".
2. Search returns documents k571gcctka8mq5jbkgpj0a0b2n892ctg and k977bvf03qzas7v7g0zqca9c7n8937zh.
3. Agent answers the question based on those documents.
4. Footer:

VP-Sources: recall("VP-MCP top level Bloc A mission status")→[k571gcctka8mq5jbkgpj0a0b2n892ctg, k977bvf03qzas7v7g0zqca9c7n8937zh]

Advisory only

This is intentional. The doctrine is designed for progressive adoption:

• Agents that implement it immediately gain auditability and trust with human reviewers.
• Agents that do not implement it are not broken — they simply lack the citation trail.
• A blocking hook would create friction for all callers including non-VP clients using the same MCP server.

The advisory status may be revisited in a future sprint if adoption data shows systematic omission.

When none-needed is acceptable

Use none-needed:<reason> when a factual search was genuinely not required:

• Trivial mechanical code edit with no claim about system state (e.g. renaming a variable).
• Calling a tool that returns the answer directly (get_task, get_mission, whoami) — the tool ID itself is the source.
• Pure arithmetic or string formatting with no fleet-state dependency.
• Iterative follow-up in the same tool-call chain where all sources are already cited in the prior response.
• The user asked a question answerable from the current conversation context alone.

Do not use none-needed to avoid searching. If the answer involves any claim about fleet state, doctrine, task status, or incident history, call one of the 5 covered tools first.

References

• Doctrine source: Eta Q1 msg k977bvf03qzas7v7g0zqca9c7n8937zh
• Mission: k571gcctka8mq5jbkgpj0a0b2n892ctg (VP-MCP top level Bloc A)
• Audit sections 27+28.4
• T-RED 0b4dc84, T-GREEN 908fd67
• MCP tool references: list_briefing_notes, list_bus, list_components, list_repo_mappings