My copilot persists the source cards it cites — which documents backed each answer, scores, names, the works. That's table stakes for a trustworthy RAG product: an answer without its evidence is just vibes.
Here's the question that changed how I shipped it: six months from now, a user opens that old conversation and the cards render again. Who authorized them the second time?
The comfortable answer is "nobody has to — it's the user's own history, they already saw it." I shipped the uncomfortable answer instead, and I want to defend it:
Persistence is not permission. What a turn was allowed to show at write time proves nothing about what it may show at read time.
The short version, if you're skimming
