Record QA Pattern

Record QA is the pattern where the chat experience needs to answer questions against structured research artifacts such as protocols, records, or discussion threads.

Design goal

The challenge is that the user may add context in the middle of a conversation:

• start with a plain question
• later inject one or more protocols
• ask follow-up questions about those protocols
• inject records or discussions
• continue the same thread without losing context

The goal is to support that without flattening everything into an opaque prompt.

Tool-based injection

The preferred pattern is to inject structured context through explicit tool calls.

Conceptual examples:

• inject_airalogy_protocols
• inject_airalogy_records
• inject_airalogy_discussions

Each tool call does two things:

• arguments identifies what should be injected, typically by ID
• content carries the resolved structured payload back into the conversation

That makes the injection auditable and reversible.

Why not just append raw text

Using tool calls instead of silently rewriting the prompt gives better system behavior:

• the frontend can show when context was injected
• the backend can control permissions before exposing data
• the model sees explicit boundaries between user questions and injected artifacts
• later debugging is easier because the provenance of context is visible

Typical conversation shape

{
  "context": {
    "inject_airalogy_protocols": {
      "enabled": true,
      "airalogy_protocol_ids": ["airalogy.id.lab.example.protocol.v.0.0.1"]
    }
  },
  "main_messages": [
    { "role": "user", "content": "Explain this protocol." },
    {
      "role": "assistant",
      "content": "",
      "tool_calls": [
        {
          "id": "call_abc123",
          "type": "function",
          "function": {
            "name": "inject_airalogy_protocols",
            "arguments": "{\"airalogy_protocol_ids\":[\"airalogy.id.lab.example.protocol.v.0.0.1\"]}"
          }
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "role": "tool",
      "tool_call_id": "call_abc123",
      "content": "{\"airalogy_protocols\":[...]}"
    },
    {
      "role": "assistant",
      "content": "This protocol defines ..."
    }
  ]
}

Relationship to current repo

This page describes a design pattern used by Masterbrain-related chat flows. Not every injection tool is currently exposed as a public endpoint in this repository, but the pattern is still the right way to model structured context that enters a conversation after it has already started.