---
title: "Citations"
description: "How an answer cites its sources, what a citation contains and how the source field of a resource appears in it."
canonical: "https://lookio.app/docs/platform/citations"
updated: "2026-10-24"
---

# Citations

Every answer is written from passages of your resources, and it cites them. In the text, a citation is a number in square brackets: `[1]`, `[2]`. They are numbered 1, 2, 3 in the order the answer cites them, so the first source the answer uses is always `[1]`.

## What a citation contains

| Field                     | Meaning                                           |
| ------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------- |
| `n`                       | The number the answer cites it by.                |
| `resource_id` and `title` | The resource the passage comes from.              |
| `text`                    | The passage itself, as indexed.                   |
| `section`                 | The headings above the passage, outermost first.  |
| `page`                    | The page, for PDFs, slides and other paged files. |
| `url`                     | The address, for a web page or a page of a site.  |
| `source`                  | The resource's **Source** field, when it has one. |

In the app, open the sources under an answer to read each passage, with its path (title, headings, page) and its address or source.

## Make citations useful

- **Give long texts real headings.** Section paths come from Markdown headings, so `# Refunds` and `## Digital goods` give a citation a path.
- **Fill the Source field.** Set it to the address or reference a reader should look up, such as "Employee handbook, 2026 edition". It appears with every citation of the resource, and an empty value clears it.
- **Use descriptive titles.** The title is part of every passage and of every citation.

## How an answer is built

Lookio searches the resources an assistant reads, by meaning and by keywords. It keeps the best passages (up to 12, up to 16 in Deep mode) and gives them to the model with the question, the assistant's context and guidelines and the last turns of the conversation. The model must answer only from those passages and cite them. Only the passages it actually cited are returned as citations, so what you see is what the answer used.

## What to rely on

A citation shows the passage the answer used, so you can verify a claim in seconds. Quote citations when you pass an answer on, and read the passage when the stakes are high.

When the sources do not answer a question, the assistant says so rather than guessing, and no citation is returned.

## In the API

An answer carries `citations` next to `answer`. The exact fields come from the [Ask an assistant](/docs/api/assistants/query-assistant) reference. A stored conversation returns the citations of every answer: see [Retrieve a conversation](/docs/api/conversations/get-conversation).

> **Note**
>
> Past answers keep the passages they quoted. If you later edit or delete a resource, earlier conversations still show what the answer relied on at the time.