## TL;DR
Fix this in handbook update agent by acting on the exact problem first: constrain every updated handbook sentence to the approved policy change record, diff the published section against that record line by line, and revert any sentence whose wording appears in no approved change. Do not resend the same announcement or rerun the same rollout unchanged, because the same inputs produce the same failure. Prove the fix on one employee group or policy page first, then rerun the full scope and reconcile the results.

```text
agent hallucinating answers not in source data for update the handbook page for a policy change error hallucination failure
```

## Use this when
- The operation in handbook update agent fails with this exact problem: agent hallucinating answers not in source data for update the handbook page for a policy change error hallucination failure.
- The same failure repeats on retry with unchanged inputs.
- A policy rollout, handbook acknowledgment, announcement or employee question is blocked until this is resolved.

## Not for this skill when
- The notice is a platform outage from the vendor. Resolve that first, then return here if this problem remains.
- The operation completes and you only disagree with a policy wording or eligibility judgement. That is a policy owner decision, not this failure.

## Steps
1. Reproduce the failure on one named employee group, policy page or announcement in handbook update agent and record the full problem text plus the group, page or policy involved. Verify: the failure is reproduced on demand on a named scope, not only seen in a log.
2. Apply the specific fix for this problem: constrain every updated handbook sentence to the approved policy change record, diff the published section against that record line by line, and revert any sentence whose wording appears in no approved change. Verify: the single failing group, page or announcement now behaves as the fix predicts, or the corrected value is visible on the record.
3. Check neighbouring employee groups, policy pages or announcements that share the same audience, template or schedule, because this class of failure rarely affects only one group. Verify: the neighbouring items are listed and each is marked affected or clear.
4. Rerun the original operation in handbook update agent on the previously failing scope, watching for the same problem rather than assuming success from a quiet log. Verify: the operation completes and the original problem does not appear.
5. Compare the result against the source of truth, the published policy text, the HR roster or the acknowledgment record, so a silent partial success is caught. Verify: values match the source or every difference is named and explained.
6. Record the fix, the triggering input and the verification result on the rollout log so the next occurrence is recognised immediately. Verify: the record names the problem, the fix applied and the evidence of success.

## Variant phrasings

### agent hallucinating answers not in source data for update the handbook page for a policy change error hallucination failure
The verbatim form searchers paste from the console, report or run log. Treat it identically: same fix, same single group proof, then the full rerun.

### How to fix - agent hallucinating answers not in source data for update the handbook page for a policy change error hallucination failure
The how to phrasing for the same failure in handbook update agent. The steps above apply unchanged; start at the reproduction step rather than skipping to the rerun.

### handbook update agent troubleshooting for this failure
The symptom first phrasing used when the console hides the full problem. Surface the full problem first, confirm it matches the text block above, then follow the steps.

## Why it happens
An update agent smoothing wording can quietly change a rule, a date or an exception, and only a line level diff against the approved change record keeps the handbook faithful to what was approved.

## Edge cases
- The policy was republished, the audience changed or a group was renamed after the failing run started. Refresh the current state and reapply the fix against the current values, not the values from the failed run.
- The single group proof passes but the full rerun still fails on other groups. Treat each remaining failure as its own scope, because a shared audience, template or schedule can hide more than one cause.
- The source systems disagree on the correct value. The published policy text governs wording, the HR roster governs audience and employment status, and the acknowledgment record governs who signed; record which source won and why.

Compatibility: handbook update agent at current versions, plus the HR system, handbook or messaging tool the query names; no extra tooling beyond access to the source records needed to verify results.

## Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_xNz8DbEoMmQeBbIL6lMMGQ