Working with Investigations

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An investigation is the top-level project container in Canonical Timeline. It holds a timeline, events, claims, sources, entities, relationships, notes, and questions — all navigated through seven tabbed lenses.

The Investigation Shell

When you open an investigation, you see a consistent shell with three parts:

1. Header — Investigation title with status badge, summary, and action buttons (edit, delete)
2. Tabs — Seven lenses: Overview, Timeline, Evidence, Knowledge, Geography, Analytics, Background
3. Content area — The active lens

Navigation within an investigation stays scoped to that investigation. Clicking an event, claim, source, or entity opens its detail page within the investigation URL prefix (/app/investigations/[id]/...).

Investigation Lenses

1. Overview

The default landing lens. It provides a dashboard summary of the investigation:

• Health score ring — A circular gauge showing the overall investigation health (0–100).
• Dimension rings — Four sub-metrics:

- Claim coverage — Percentage of events that have at least one claim.
- Event source coverage — Percentage of events with sourced claims.
- Entity connectedness — Percentage of entities linked to events.
- Review completion — Percentage of claims that have been reviewed.

• Metric cards — Clickable cards showing counts for events, claims, sources, entities, and relationships. Click any card to navigate to the relevant lens.
• Recent activity — A feed of recent changes (new events, claims created, entities linked).
• Quick actions — Buttons to add events, sources, entities, claims, or search.
• Recent events sidebar — The most recently added or updated events.
• Key entities — Entities with the most connections within this investigation.
• Top sources — Sources cited the most times.

2. Timeline

The full event sequence for this investigation's timeline. See Working with Timelines for complete documentation.

Key features within the investigation context:

• Infinite scroll event list — Events loaded in pages of 50.
• Filters — Search by title/description, filter by status, filter by claim confidence level, zoom slider.
• Context panel — Click an event to see its details in the right sidebar: metadata, linked entities, location, and claims.
• Inline CRUD — Create, edit, and delete events from the toolbar.
• Export — Download as CSV, JSON, or Markdown.
• Collapse/expand — Toggle all event cards open or closed.
• Event detail pages — Click an event title to navigate to its full detail page within the investigation context at /app/investigations/[id]/timeline/events/[eventId].

3. Evidence

Dual-tab view for claims and sources within this investigation.

Claims Tab

• Searchable, filterable list of all claims in this investigation.
• Filter by claim status.
• Each claim shows the claim text, status badge, confidence score, source link, and parent event.
• Click a claim to open the review dialog where you can adjust status and confidence.
• Click a claim's arrow to navigate to the investigation-scoped claim detail page.

Sources Tab

• Searchable list of all sources associated with this investigation.
• Each source shows the title, type badge, association info, and counts (claims, events, files).
• Click a source to navigate to its detail page within the investigation context.
• Associate Source button to link an existing source to this investigation.

4. Knowledge

Dual-tab view for entities and relationships.

Entities Tab

• Infinite scroll list of entities linked to events in this investigation.
• Each entity shows the canonical name, type badge, and connection count.
• Click an entity to navigate to its detail page within the investigation context.

Relationships Tab

• List of relationships between entities in this investigation.
• Each relationship shows the from-entity, relationship type, to-entity, and evidence count.
• Click a relationship to view its detail page.

Entity Graph

From the Knowledge lens, you can open the entity graph — an interactive ReactFlow graph visualizing the entity relationship network for this investigation:

• Search for entities to highlight them in the graph.
• Drag nodes to rearrange the layout.
• Zoom and pan to explore dense clusters.
• Export as PNG to include in reports.
• Position save/reset — your layout is saved and restored on next visit.

5. Geography

An interactive map showing event locations for this investigation.

• Map markers — Events with coordinates appear as numbered markers on a Leaflet map.
• Marker clustering — Clustered at higher zoom levels; zoom in to separate.
• Missing coordinates — A summary showing events that lack geographic locations.
• Click a marker to navigate to its event.

6. Analytics

Three tabs for understanding investigation health and completeness.

Health Tab

• Overall health score — Aggregated metric from claim coverage, event source coverage, entity connectedness, and review completion.
• Coverage dimensions — Detailed breakdown of each sub-metric.
• Status distributions — How events and claims are distributed across status values.

Gaps Tab

Identifies specific weaknesses in the investigation:

Trends Tab

Time-series charts showing the growth of the investigation over time:

• Events, claims, sources, entities, and relationships added over time.
• Questions asked and resolved over time.
• Reviews completed and source validations run over time.

7. Background

Four tabs for narrative context: All, Notes, Open Questions, and Resolved Questions.

Notes

• Create free-text notes with an optional title.
• Notes can reference events, claims, sources, or entities within the investigation.
• Edit and delete notes as needed.

Open Questions

• Create questions that your investigation needs to answer.
• Each question has a title and an optional description.
• Resolve questions when they are answered — they move to the Resolved tab.
• Reopen questions if new evidence surfaces.

Resolved Questions

• Shows questions that have been answered.
• Each resolved question shows the answer.
• Reopen any question if the answer is no longer satisfactory.

Creating an Investigation

From the Investigation Index

1. Navigate to the workspace (sidebar > Workspace > Investigations).
2. Click the + New Investigation button.
3. Fill in the dialog:

- Title: A descriptive name (e.g., "Acme Corp Insider Trading Investigation").
- Status: The current phase — draft, active, paused, resolved, or archived.
- Summary: Optional description of scope and goals.

1. Click Create.

You are taken to the new investigation's Overview lens.

Editing an Investigation

1. From any investigation lens, click the Edit button in the header.
2. The Edit Investigation dialog opens with current values.
3. Modify the title, status, or summary.
4. Click Save.

Deleting an Investigation

1. Click the Delete option in the investigation header dropdown menu.
2. Confirm in the dialog.

Deleting an investigation permanently removes it and cannot be undone. The investigation will no longer appear in your index.

Starring an Investigation

Click the star icon on an investigation row in the investigation index (sidebar > Workspace > Investigations) to add it to your starred list (sidebar > Workspace > Starred). Click again to unstar.

Investigation Statuses

Changing the investigation status is a signal to your team about the current phase of work.

Keyboard Shortcuts

For a complete list of shortcuts, see Keyboard Shortcuts.

Next: Workspace →