← Concept IndexDEFINITION WHY IT MATTERS COMMONLY CONFUSED WITH
Prompting & context engineering
Evidence and uncertainty rules
Also called: ask, don't invent, say when you're unsure
Instructing the model to ground claims in provided sources, to flag what it's unsure about, and to ask or abstain rather than fabricate when it lacks the facts.
This is the prompt-level defence against hallucination. 'Only use the document I gave you, and tell me what's missing' converts a confident guesser into a more honest assistant.
A guarantee. The rule reduces invention but doesn't eliminate it; high-stakes claims still need a human to check the source.