How do you implement citation and source attribution in RAG responses?

Citation in RAG responses provides transparency and verifiability. During indexing, assign each chunk a unique identifier and preserve source metadata including document title, page number, URL, author, and date. In the prompt, present each context chunk with its identifier like Source 1 and Source 2. Instruct the LLM to cite sources using these identifiers when using information from specific chunks. Post-process the response to replace source identifiers with formatted citations including clickable links to original documents where applicable. Verify citations by checking that the attributed information actually appears in the cited chunk. Advanced implementations use NLI or natural language inference models to verify that each cited claim is entailed by its source passage. Display citations inline or as footnotes depending on the user interface. Track which sources are most frequently cited for quality monitoring and knowledge base optimization.