Bedrock converse citations location always points to web

[Mivekk]

Checkboxes for prior research

• I've gone through Developer Guide and API reference
• I've checked AWS Forums and StackOverflow.
• I've searched for previous similar issues and didn't find any solution.

Describe the bug

When sending pdf documents using the ConverseStreamCommand command instead of receiving DocumentPageLocation I'm always receiving WebLocation as part of the citation chunk response.

It's a recent issue as the last time when I was working on it it returned proper cited page numbers, however now I'm stuck with location: { web: {} }.

Sample request:

    role: 'user',
    content: [
      {
        document: {
          name: 'Argument fragment',
          format: 'pdf',
          source: {
            bytes: Uint8Array(254432) [
               37,  80,  68, 70, 45, 49,  46,  54,  13, 37, 226, 227,
              207, 211,  13, 10, 53, 53,  57,  32,  48, 32, 111,  98,
              106,  32,  60, 60, 47, 76, 105, 110, 101, 97, 114, 105,
              122, 101, 100, 32, 49, 47,  76,  32,  50, 53,  52,  52,
               51,  50,  47, 79, 32, 53,  54,  49,  47, 69,  32,  56,
               52,  52,  56, 57, 47, 78,  32,  49,  48, 47,  84,  32,
               50,  52,  51, 50, 48, 52,  47,  72,  32, 91,  32,  49,
               50,  51,  54, 32, 53, 54,  52,  93,  62, 62,  13, 101,
              110, 100, 111, 98,
              ... 254332 more items
            ]
          },
          citations: { enabled: true }
        }
      },
      { text: 'what is this document about?' },
      { cachePoint: { type: 'default' } }
    ]
  }

Sample citation chunk response:

citations: [
      {
        location: { web: {} },
        sourceContent: [
          {
            text: 'Po...'
          }
        ],
        title: 'Argument fragment'
      },
]

On versions 3.919.0 and below it returns location: { web: { type: 'char_location' } } or location: { web: { type: 'page_location' } } depending on document type instead of actual locations

Regression Issue

• Select this option if this issue appears to be a regression.

SDK version number

@aws-sdk/client-bedrock-runtime@3.929

Which JavaScript Runtime is this issue in?

Node.js

Details of the browser/Node.js/ReactNative version

v22.17.1

Reproduction Steps

let testMessages = [
  {
    role: "user",
    content: [
      {
        text: "What is this document about?",
      },
      {
        document: {
          name: "Example Document",
          format: "txt",
          source: {
            text: "This is an example document content used for testing document upload functionality in the chat application.",
          },
          citations: { enabled: true },
        },
      },
    ],
  },
];

const streamInput: ConverseStreamCommandInput = {
  modelId: "eu.anthropic.claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929-v1:0",
  messages: testMessages,
};

const command = new ConverseStreamCommand(streamInput);
const client = new BedrockRuntimeClient();
const response = await client.send(command);

stream = new ReadableStream({
  async start(controller) {
    for await (const chunk of response.stream!) {
      console.dir(chunk, { depth: null });
    }
  },
});

Observed Behavior

It returns empty web object as location instead of DocumentCharLocation

{
  contentBlockDelta: {
    delta: {
      citation: {
        title: 'Example Document',
        sourceContent: [
          {
            text: 'This is an example document content used for testing document upload functionality in the chat application.'
          }
        ],
        location: { web: {} }
      }
    },
    contentBlockIndex: 0
  }
}

Expected Behavior

{
  contentBlockDelta: {
    delta: {
      citation: {
        title: 'Example Document',
        sourceContent: [
          {
            text: 'This is an example document content used for testing document upload functionality in the chat application.'
          }
        ],
        location: { documentChar: { documentIndex: 0, start: 0, end: 50 } }
      }
    },
    contentBlockIndex: 0
  }
}

Possible Solution

No response

Additional Information/Context

No response

[kuhe]

I was able to reproduce the issue. I'm not sure why the Bedrock service is citing web for the supplied text. That may be a question for the service team or via any technical advisors you may have access to as part of your account.

I believe the SDK is functioning as intended, however.

The reason that location: { web: { type: 'char_location' } } no longer contains the portion type: 'char_location' is a modeling issue. The type in question is an interface called WebLocation (linked). It is modeled to only have two fields called url and domain in the latest version, so the visibility of unmodeled fields like type are subject to change. Being unmodeled means the service doesn't really intend for you to interact with those fields yet, perhaps because they are not finalized.

A recent change to the serialization behavior of the SDK now hides these fields by default, because they should not be relied upon.

---

sample code

import { BedrockRuntime } from "@aws-sdk/client-bedrock-runtime";

(async () => {
  const br = new BedrockRuntime({ region: 'us-west-2' });

  const response = await br.converseStream({
    modelId: "us.anthropic.claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929-v1:0",
    messages: [
      {
        role: "user",
        content: [
          {
            document: {
              name: "Example Document",
              format: "txt",
              source: {
                text: require("fs").readFileSync("./sample.txt", "utf-8"),
              },
              citations: { enabled: true },
            },
          },
          { text: "what is the name of my stuffed bear?" },
        ],
      },
    ],
  });

  for await (const event of response.stream) {
    console.log("=== event ===", JSON.stringify(event, null, 2));
  }
})();

[Mivekk]

Thank you for quick response. I will raise the issue with the service team and paste their response here if anyone else is struggling with this problem.