Self-Reflective Chain-of-Thought (SRCoT): Evidence-Based Text Generation via a Closed-Loop Retrieve--Reflect--Revise Pipeline on Edge LLMs

Fabian Broszio, Michael Hoffmann, Adrian Paschke

Large language models (LLMs) can generate fluent outputs that lack source support or conflict with local operational constraints. We introduce Self-Reflective Chain-of-Thought (SRCoT), a modular architecture that organizes generation as a closed Retrieve--Reflect--Revise loop. SRCoT separates environment state, persistent knowledge, accumulated experience, and short-term memory into provenance-labeled stores. BM25 retrieval supplies local context; subsequent passes expose intermediate drafts, missing-information markers, follow-up queries, and optional claim--evidence mappings. These artifacts inform retrieval, revision, clarification, or abstention decisions. We examine the architecture through qualitative, trace-based case studies in two fully synthetic settings: emergency medical services and Munich-Sim, an emergency-operations simulation. Local prototype runs on an Apple M4-family laptop with 128 GB memory illustrate source-labeled documentation, explicit gap marking, and structured dispatch-style outputs. The traces also reveal provenance-assignment errors, incomplete evidence coverage, and unsafe assumptions that remain possible despite prompting constraints. These cases…