C11KNOWLEDGE

Policy and contract Q&A

A focused Q&A assistant grounded specifically on the firm's policies, contracts, and compliance documentation. Answers questions like 'what are our payment terms with vendor X', 'what's our PTO policy', 'what does our MSA say about IP'. Different from C7 (general knowledge search) in that it's tuned for the precision and citation discipline that policy and contract questions require: every answer must cite the specific clause, with the exact text visible. The pattern's value is taking the 'I have to ask legal' and 'I have to read the contract' load off the team.

WHERE THIS FITS

BUSINESS SHAPES

B2B servicesProfessional servicesProduct company

VOLUME THRESHOLD

Below 10 policy or contract questions per week a month, the payback rarely earns the build. Patterns this shape reliably pay back at 50+.

REQUIREMENTS · 5 REQUIRED

Requirements describe capabilities the pattern needs in your environment, not the vendors you must buy. Any system that fills a requirement satisfies it — that’s what makes the catalog portable across the long tail of SMB tooling.

policy_contract_corpus
REQUIREDREADcorpus
The authoritative document collection. Policy documents, signed contracts, addenda, amendments. Every word matters.
DATA SHAPE
Versioned documents with full text, signed dates, expiry dates, counterparties (for contracts), and structured metadata.
COMMONLY FILLED BY
- contract management system
- internal policy library with version control
- structured legal document store
- shared drive with organized policy and contract folders
user_query_surface
REQUIREDREAD + WRITErequest
Where people ask questions about policies and contracts.
DATA SHAPE
Natural language question with asker's identity for permission checks.
COMMONLY FILLED BY
- chat interface in the contract management system
- chat bot for policy questions
- search bar in the firm portal
permission_resolver
REQUIREDREADrequest
Determines which documents the user is allowed to query. Contracts especially have tight access controls.
DATA SHAPE
Per-user-per-document access lookup based on roles and contract sensitivity.
COMMONLY FILLED BY
- permission groups in the contract management system
- role-based access in the policy library
- explicit allowlists for sensitive contracts
citation_destination
REQUIREDWRITErequest
Where the answer goes back, with citations that show the exact source text. The citation is non-negotiable for this pattern.
DATA SHAPE
Answer with inline citations: each claim quotes the source clause with document name, section, and date. User can click through to see context.
COMMONLY FILLED BY
- answer panel with collapsible source quotations
- chat reply with citations as links
- structured response with clause-by-clause source
legal_escalation_route
REQUIREDWRITEevent
Questions the pattern shouldn't answer alone (interpreting clauses in dispute, novel legal questions, anything touching litigation) get routed to legal.
DATA SHAPE
Question with context, the documents the pattern would have searched, reason for escalation.
COMMONLY FILLED BY
- ticket created for the legal team
- DM to the firm's general counsel or external lawyer
- queue in the legal workflow system

RUNTIME FLOW · 8 STEPS

01
User asks a question through the query surface
user_query_surface
02
Resolve user permissions against the policy/contract corpus
permission_resolver
03
Classify the question: factual lookup, interpretive judgment, or novel legal question
04
For interpretive or novel questions, route to legal escalation immediately
legal_escalation_route
DECISION Pattern only answers factual lookups.
05
Search the permissioned corpus for the relevant clauses
policy_contract_corpus
06
Compose an answer with inline citations: each claim must quote the source clause with full context available on hover or click
07
If no clear answer is found, say so explicitly and offer to route to legal
DECISION Honest 'no clear answer' is mandatory; this pattern must never hedge.
08
Deliver the answer with citations to the user
citation_destination

EMISSIONS · 3

Structured outputs this pattern produces. Other patterns and client systems can subscribe to them, which is how the catalog composes over time.

policy_question_signal
What the team asks about policies and contracts, aggregated.
CONSUMED BY
- policy team understanding what's unclear
- training and communications priorities
- contract templating decisions
legal_escalation_volume
How often the pattern correctly escalates and how often a human had to override its answer.
CONSUMED BY
- legal team capacity planning
- pattern quality dashboards
contract_search_signal
Which contracts get queried most, useful for renewal prioritization and template improvement.
CONSUMED BY
- legal operations
- contract template review cycles