The evidence is the part people read

A citation is usually treated like a footnote, something added at the end for completeness. In a product built on agents it works the other way round. The evidence is what the person actually reads, because it's the only part they can check for themselves.

Watch someone use an agent that quotes its sources and you'll notice this. They skim the conclusion, read the quote, and act on the answer only once the quote has convinced them. And when there's no quote? They either trust it blindly, which ends badly, or they redo the work themselves, in which case the agent saved them nothing.

Designing for this changes the product. The quote has to be word for word, and it has to point at something the person can open. Gaps have to show up as gaps. An agent that fills silence with confident guesses teaches people to stop checking, and that's when it becomes dangerous.

We built Openings on this rule, and it shaped almost everything: what the tools return, what the screen shows, and what the agent isn't allowed to claim. It takes longer to build this way, but it's the only version people keep using.

Working on this in your own product? See the four ways to start, or write to [email protected].