Safety and Compliance (CKL)
Configure the Compliance Knowledge Layer -- industry standards, trigger terms, and safety enrichment.
What this page does
The Safety and Compliance page (also called "Knowledge" in navigation) manages the Compliance Knowledge Layer (CKL). CKL stores industry standards, regulations, and best practices that Planara checks against when generating answers. When a technician asks about a procedure, CKL automatically flags relevant safety rules and compliance requirements.
How CKL works
CKL is a separate retrieval layer alongside the main document index. Here is the flow:
- A technician asks a question (e.g., "How do I replace the anode?")
- Planara retrieves relevant chunks from ingested documents
- The query and retrieved content are checked against trigger terms (e.g., "corrosion", "anode", "galvanic")
- If any trigger term matches, CKL sources are retrieved from a separate vector index
- Relevant CKL sources are included in the context used to generate the answer
- The generated response includes CKL citations as blue chips on procedure steps
Configuration panel
Fields
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Description | Free text describing this CKL configuration (e.g., "Marine industry standards and best practices") |
| Trigger Terms | Comma-separated keywords that activate CKL. When any of these appear in the query or retrieved chunks, CKL sources are searched. Example: corrosion, galvanic, anode, ABYC, fuel system, winterization |
| Confidence Threshold | CKL activates when the main retrieval confidence is below this value. Default: 0.7. Set to 1.0 to always check CKL. |
| Relevance Threshold | Minimum similarity score for CKL results to be included in the prompt. Default: 0.55. Lower values include more marginal matches. |
| Max Sources | Maximum number of CKL sources included per response. Default: 5. |
| Enabled/Disabled toggle | Master switch for CKL enrichment. When disabled, no compliance citations are generated. |
Tips for trigger terms
- Be specific: "ABYC E-11" is better than just "electrical"
- Include both formal standard names and common terms: "ABYC H-2" and "ventilation" and "blower"
- Too many vague triggers will slow down response generation
- Too few triggers will miss relevant safety citations
- The count indicator below the text area shows how many triggers are configured
Knowledge sources
Sources are the actual content that CKL retrieves. Each source represents a standard, regulation, or best practice.
Source fields
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Source Name | Display name (e.g., "ABYC E-11 AC and DC Electrical Systems") |
| Standard ID | Reference identifier (e.g., "ABYC E-11"). Shown as a badge. |
| Content | The actual text that will be indexed and made searchable. This is what Planara retrieves. |
| Topics | Comma-separated topic tags for categorization |
| Source URL | Optional link to the original standard |
| Status | Indexed (green, searchable), Pending (yellow, being processed), or Error (red) |
Adding sources
Three methods:
- Manual entry -- click "Add Source" and fill in the fields. Good for adding excerpts from standards you have access to.
- PDF upload -- click "Choose PDF" to upload a compliance document directly. It will be ingested into the CKL index (not the main document index).
- URL fetch -- paste a URL to a publicly accessible standard or regulation. The system fetches the content, extracts the relevant text, and creates a CKL source. Useful for online-published standards that update periodically.
Standards Discovery Wizard
The Discovery Wizard automates CKL setup for new namespaces. When you click "Discover Standards" the system:
- Analyzes your ingested documents to identify the industry vertical and relevant topics
- Suggests applicable industry standards (ABYC for marine, OSHA for industrial, EPA for HVAC, etc.)
- Proposes trigger terms based on your document content
- Creates draft CKL sources that you can review and approve
The wizard is most useful during initial onboarding -- it can populate 5-10 relevant standards in minutes instead of manual research. After the wizard runs, review each source and adjust trigger terms to match your specific use case.
Auto-triggers
CKL sources can be configured with auto-triggers -- specific query patterns or fault codes that automatically include the relevant CKL source in the response, bypassing the similarity search. This is useful for critical safety standards that must always be surfaced when certain topics arise, regardless of retrieval confidence.
Example: An ABYC E-11 source with auto-trigger electrical isolation will always be included when a technician asks about disconnecting batteries, even if the similarity score falls below the relevance threshold.
Seeding sources
For a namespace on a vertical with a seed pack available and no sources configured yet, a "Seed knowledge sources" prompt appears, offering to pre-load a starter set of industry standards. For the marine vertical that is:
- ABYC E-11 (electrical systems)
- ABYC H-2 (gasoline ventilation)
- Marine corrosion prevention best practices
Seeded sources are ordinary CKL sources — review, edit, or remove them like any other.
How CKL appears to technicians
In the technician frontend, CKL sources appear as blue chips on procedure steps and in chat responses. When a technician taps a chip, they see:
- The standard ID and name
- The relevant excerpt from the source
- A link to the full standard (if a source URL is configured)
This gives technicians immediate awareness of safety and compliance requirements without cluttering the primary answer.
FAQ
Q: Does CKL slow down responses? A: Slightly. CKL adds a secondary retrieval step when triggers match. The impact is typically 1-2 seconds. You can minimize this by keeping trigger terms specific and the relevance threshold high.
Q: Can I have CKL without any trigger terms? A: Technically yes (set confidence threshold to 1.0 to always check), but this is not recommended as it would search CKL on every query.
Q: What if a CKL source contradicts the document content? A: CKL sources are presented alongside document content, not as replacements. Planara is instructed to flag conflicts. In practice, CKL sources (industry standards) typically supplement OEM documentation.