Claims and Sources

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Claims are the connective tissue between what happened (events) and the evidence (sources). Sources are the foundation that gives your investigation credibility.

Creating a Claim

Claims are always attached to an event. You cannot create a standalone claim.

From the Timeline Lens

1. Open the Timeline lens of an investigation.
2. Select an event card. The context panel opens showing the event's details.
3. Click + Add Claim.
4. Fill in the fields:

1. Click Create.

The claim appears on the event card and in the context panel.

From the Evidence Lens

1. Open the Evidence lens and switch to the Claims tab.
2. The claims list shows all claims in this investigation, filterable by status and searchable by text.
3. Claims can be reviewed and edited inline from this view.

From the Event Detail Page

1. Navigate to the event detail page within the investigation context.
2. Under the Claims section, click + Add.
3. Fill in the same fields as above.
4. Click Create.

Editing a Claim

1. Expand an event card on the timeline, or navigate to the Evidence lens.
2. Find the claim you want to edit.
3. Click the claim text or the edit icon to open the Claim Review dialog.

The Claim Review Dialog

This dialog lets you update:

• Claim Text — Edit the assertion
• Status — Change the verification grade
• Confidence — Adjust the confidence score using a slider (0–100)
• Source — Change or update the source attribution

Click Save to apply changes. The revision history records the before/after state.

Claim Statuses: The Verification Workflow

rumored → reported → verifiable → fact
                 ↘               ↘
             unverifiable      retracted

Claims proven false should have their status updated — do not delete them. The record of disproven claims is as valuable as proven ones.

Confidence Scores

Confidence is a 0–100 score representing your assessment of how likely the claim is to be accurate:

Use the slider in the Claim Review dialog to adjust confidence.

Creating a Source

From the Sources List

1. Click Sources in the sidebar (under Management).
2. Click + New Source.
3. Fill in the dialog:

1. Click Create.

Creating a Source While Adding a Claim

When creating a claim, you can create a source inline:

1. In the Create Claim dialog, click the source search field.
2. If the source doesn't exist, a "Create new source" option appears.
3. Fill in the source fields inline.
4. The source is created and automatically attached to the claim.

Associating a Source with an Investigation

From the Evidence lens > Sources tab, click Associate Source to link an existing source to the current investigation. This makes the source visible in the investigation's evidence view.

The Source Detail Page

Each source has a dedicated page at /app/investigations/[investigationId]/evidence/sources/[sourceId] when accessed from within an investigation, or at /app/sources/[sourceId] when accessed from the sidebar.

Page Layout

Header

• Source icon (varies by source type)
• Title with source type badge
• Verify Claims button — check if source content has changed
• Audit History button — view revision history
• Edit button — modify source metadata
• Delete button — remove the source

Metadata

• URL — Click to open in a new tab
• Published — Formatted date
• Checksum — SHA hash of uploaded files

Content

• Extracted Content — Text extracted from uploaded files
• Raw Content — Unprocessed source text

File Attachments

• File upload zone — drag and drop or click to browse
• File list with download links

Verifying Sources

Articles can be corrected, updated, or retracted after publication. The Verify Source button checks whether the current article content has changed since you last validated it.

How It Works

1. On the source detail page, click Verify Claims.
2. The system fetches the current article and computes a checksum.
3. It compares against the stored checksum from the last validation.

What Happens to Claims

• If content has changed, claims attached to this source are flagged for review (needs_review = true). They appear in the Review Queue.
• The system never changes a claim's status automatically. Only a human reviewer determines what the source change means for each claim.

Source Types

The system includes 175+ predefined source types, organized by domain:

Custom source types can be created per account via Type Management (sidebar > Management > Type Management).

Next: Entities and Relationships →