Skill: HG Citation Discipline
Briefs that read like an analyst wrote them — every claim cited, no hallucinated emails or revenue figures.
Overview
Hallucination control for AI-generated GTM deliverables. Claude learns the source-priority order (HG → SEC → web), the citation-density rules that keep prose readable instead of footnote-heavy, and the no-fabrication guardrails that stop invented emails, revenue figures, and product versions from landing in your output. Every claim traces to a source.
Use cases
Account briefs your CRO trusts on first read
Every spend figure, install reference, and stakeholder name traces back to HG, SEC, or a web source — and the source frame appears at the top of each section, not buried per sentence. The brief reads as an executive summary, not a research paper with 40 footnotes.
Hallucination guardrails for outbound + research
Claude won't fabricate emails (if contact_enrich didn't return one, the field is omitted), revenue figures (low-confidence numbers get hedged or dropped), or product versions (a name without a verified version stays unversioned). The 'we got an angry reply because the email was wrong' problem disappears.
View full skill
HG Citation Discipline
When to use
- Authoring or editing a workflow prompt that produces narrative output.
- Reviewing a workflow output that quotes HG / SEC / web data — check the citation pattern against this skill.
The rules
1. Cite at source boundaries, not per claim
In a paragraph that synthesizes three HG signals, one citation at the end of the synthesis is enough, not one citation per signal. Per-claim citation reads like a footnoted research paper; per-source-boundary reads like a brief.
Per-bullet citation is the exception: when bullets reference different products from different verifications, each bullet carries its own citation.
2. One marker per table
A markdown table that pulls every cell from company_technographic carries one citation in the introductory sentence, not one per row. The reader trusts that the table is internally consistent.
When a table mixes sources (e.g., HG technographic + SEC headcount), use a footnote-style cite per column.
3. Source-priority order
When multiple sources can support the same claim:
- HG — primary. Cite as "HG, [month year]" (e.g., "HG, May 2026").
- SEC filings — for public-company-specific claims (revenue, acquisitions, executive changes). Cite as "SEC 10-K (FY2025)" or similar; the year matters.
- Web search — last resort, only when HG and SEC don't cover the claim. Cite as "web search, [domain.com], [date]".
Never cite "general knowledge" or "industry consensus" — that's a tell for fabrication.
4. No-fabrication guardrails
- Never invent emails or phone numbers.
contact_searchreturns name + title + location + LinkedIn; if the workflow wants email, callcontact_enrichexplicitly. Otherwise omit. - Never invent revenue figures. If
company_firmographicreturns a low-confidence revenue, hedge ("approximately") or omit; do not pick a precise-looking number from web sources without re-citing them. - Never invent product versions.
company_technographicreturns a product name, not a version string. "They run Salesforce v59" is a fabrication unless the version came from another tool. - Never invent deal values. If
company_contractsis the source, it's modeled — say so. - LinkedIn URLs only for contacts. Don't invent direct-message Twitter handles or personal blogs.
How this maps to the duplicated caveats
The text "CITATION DENSITY" appears nine times in webapp/src/server/db/blueprint-definitions.ts — every workflow prompt re-encodes some variation of these rules inline. When a workflow references this skill (composition mechanism in follow-up #B), it should drop those inline lines and add: "Follow the citation discipline in the hg-citation-discipline skill."
Common pitfalls
- Trying to be helpful and citing every claim. It clutters the output and makes the deliverable feel uncertain. Trust the source boundary.
- Mixing citation styles within one document. Pick one (per-paragraph or per-bullet) and stick to it.
- Citing HG for things HG doesn't cover. "HG, May 2026" after a claim about company strategy is wrong if the strategy came from web search; that's an SEC or web cite.
Reference
hg-insights-api.md#citation— HG-side guidance on citation languagehg-modeled-vs-observed— when to add the "modeled" qualifier