Knowledge graph
What this page is — a web of everything your documents mention and touch — parties, obligations, defined terms, dates, amounts, clauses, concepts — linked to the documents they appear in, explored by naming one entity and following its links.
What it is for — so "what else do we have with this counterparty?" is answered without knowing which documents to look in.
The problem it solves — knowing everything you have with one counterparty means already knowing which documents to open.
Route: /org/papers/graph · Permissions: Show the Knowledge Graph sidebar entry. and
View this project's documents. to explore; Manage folders, tags, move/file and bulk operations. or
Papers module limits, defaults, integrations and signature-provider toggles. to rebuild.
1. What it is
Every connection is a stored edge belonging to exactly one document. Edges come from two feeds:
| Feed | Produces | Kept current by | Trust |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deterministic | party of, has obligation, amendment of, renewal of, addendum of, mentions — from the parties panel, document relations and open obligations | Re-synced automatically when those change | Exact — grey badges |
| AI | Free-form relations — supplier of, governed by, subsidiary of — from an Entity & concept graph run | Replaced each time that capability runs on the document | A strong lead — blue AI badge |
Exploring costs nothing. Autocomplete, Explore and pivoting are database reads. Only running Entity & concept graph on a document spends credits, and that happens in the document workspace.
Nine node types: Documents (blue), Parties (green), Obligations (amber), and Defined terms, Clauses, Key dates, Amounts, External references and Concepts (grey). Anything the AI names outside this list becomes a Concept.
2. Why you would use it
- Names vary; entities connect. A counterparty spelled three ways across documents is found by a fragment.
- It finds exposure you did not search for. Pivot from a party to a defined term, and see other counterparties whose contracts define it.
- Obligations are visible from the relationship side. Everything a party owes, across every document.
- Provenance is on every edge. Each links to its source document, and says whether a machine or the AI derived it.
3. Step by step
- Type an entity — a company, a person, a term, a document name. Suggestions appear, most-connected first.
- Pick a suggestion, or press Explore.
- Read the clusters on the left — a profile of the entity.
- Read Connections on the right — each row is source — relation — target.
- Click any non-document chip to pivot; click a document chip to open it.
- If the graph looks stale, Rebuild graph (with the permission).
4. Field reference
Search and results
| Element | Rules |
|---|---|
| Search | Case-insensitive substring on the entity's normalised name |
| Suggestions | Entity type, name, link count — most connected first |
| Header | Linked to "X" — n nodes, m connections |
| Clusters | At most 30 chips each; +N more for the rest |
| Connections | At most 200 per exploration, newest first |
| Edge note | Party role, obligation due date, or the AI's detail |
| Source badge | AI, or party / relation / obligation |
Messages
| Message | Means |
|---|---|
| Type an entity to explore | Explore with an empty box |
| Nothing linked to "X" yet | Spelled differently, never synced, or only in text nobody has run Entity & concept graph on |
| Graph rebuilt from N document(s) | Rebuild finished |
| Graph query failed / Rebuild failed | Connectivity, permission or server — rebuild is safe to repeat |
Rebuild graph
Walks every document in scope: re-syncs parties, parent relations and open obligations, and re-persists each document's most recent saved Entity & concept graph result. No AI runs, no credits. Each document's edges are replaced, never duplicated.
5. Worked example
A procurement director is told Acme Corp is being acquired and wants to know the company's exposure.
- Types
acme. Suggestions: Acme Corp (party, 22 links), Acme Holdings (party, 3 links), MSA — Acme Corp 2026 (document). - Explores Acme Corp: 14 nodes, 22 connections. Clusters: 6 Documents, 5 Obligations, 2 Defined terms, 1 Concept.
- Connections include MSA — Acme Corp 2026 [has obligation] payment: quarterly service fees · due 2026-10-01 (grey) and Acme Corp [subsidiary of] Acme Holdings (blue AI).
- Pivots on the defined term indemnification: three other suppliers' contracts define it identically — a template shared across vendors.
- Opens the AI edge's source document to verify the subsidiary claim before putting it in a memo.
Acme's newest SOW is missing. It was renewed from the Obligations page, which does not add graph edges; an administrator presses Rebuild graph and it appears.
6. The admin contract
| Must be true | Where | What breaks without it |
|---|---|---|
| Documents record parties, relations and obligations | Documents, obligations | The deterministic feed has nothing to link |
| Entity & concept graph is run on important documents | AI capability, or auto-run on finalize | Terms, clauses and concepts never appear |
| Someone with rebuild permission exists | Role editor | Stale or imported documents stay unlinked |
| Users hold View this project's documents. | Role editor | The page is unreachable |
7. Downstream
| When… | Then |
|---|---|
| A party, relation or open obligation changes | Its deterministic edges re-sync |
| An obligation is completed | Its has obligation edge disappears — only open obligations are linked |
| Entity & concept graph runs again | That document's AI edges are replaced |
| Rebuild runs | Every document's edges are re-derived from stored data |
8. Don't confuse this with…
| Entity & concept graph | Runs on one document and feeds this graph |
| Repository | Finds documents. This finds what documents mention |
| Cross-document consistency | Checks whether related documents agree |
9. Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Cause |
|---|---|
| Nothing linked to "X" yet | Different spelling, never synced, or only in un-extracted text |
| The graph is sparse | Few documents have had Entity & concept graph run |
| A completed obligation vanished | Only open obligations are linked |
| Exactly 200 connections | The limit — pivot to something narrower |
| A renewal is missing | Created from Obligations → Renew — rebuild the graph |
| No Rebuild button | You lack repository-manage and Papers settings-manage |