spotlight

Spotlight

Spotlight turns an investigation lead into a structured case file: scoped brief, approved methodology, sourced findings, independent fact-checking, review artifacts, provenance records, and handoff-ready knowledge.

It is built for active OSINT casework. Give it a lead, URL, document, entity, or question; it creates a working case directory, gathers source material, tests claims against evidence, and stops at editorial gates instead of quietly treating unfinished leads as publishable facts. The active case workspace is separate from the knowledge vault: Spotlight queries the vault for prior context when a case starts, and ingests verified material into the vault only after an explicit end-of-case decision.

What Spotlight Does

• Builds an investigation brief with the journalist before research starts.
• Drafts a methodology and waits for approval before execution.
• Runs bounded research cycles against public sources, local case files, and the journalist's vault.
• Saves source material into the case directory before citing it.
• Produces structured findings with source URLs, local files, confidence, evidence grounding, limitations, and monitoring recommendations.
• Runs an independent fact-check pass using SIFT-style source verification.
• Enforces readiness criteria before Gate 1 review.
• Produces review, summary, evidence, and provenance artifacts that can be inspected, exported, or ingested into a knowledge vault.

Investigation Workflow

Preflight
  -> Brief
  -> Methodology
  -> Research and fact-check cycles
  -> Gate 1 review
  -> Ingest, monitor, export, or continue

Every gate is explicit. Spotlight does not auto-advance through brief approval, methodology approval, Gate 1 review, or vault ingestion.

The research loop runs up to five cycles by default:

1. The investigator follows the approved methodology and writes findings.
2. The fact-checker independently checks the findings and writes verdicts.
3. The orchestrator checks source grounding, disputes, gaps, and readiness.
4. If the case is not ready, the next cycle targets the specific gaps.
5. If the case stalls, Spotlight asks the journalist whether to continue, pivot, or review the current material as-is.

See docs/investigating.md for the full phase and gate contract.

Readiness Criteria

Spotlight only opens Gate 1 when the case has passed six editorial checks:

• Enough high-confidence findings.
• Independent source support for key claims.
• No unresolved disputed claims without a resolution path.
• At least one affected or non-official perspective when relevant.
• A document trail with primary sources, not only news coverage.
• Known gaps either resolved or stated as limitations.

These checks are not a truth guarantee. They are a forcing function that keeps the case file honest about what is known, what is unsupported, and what still needs reporting.

Case Outputs

Each investigation gets an isolated working directory under the configured SPOTLIGHT_CASES_ROOT active case workspace:

{CASE_DIR}/
├── brief-directions.txt
├── summary.md
├── review.html
├── data/
│   ├── methodology.json
│   ├── findings.json
│   ├── fact-check.json
│   ├── evidence-bundle.json
│   ├── investigation-log.json
│   ├── summary.json
│   ├── provenance-manifest.json
│   └── monitoring.json
├── research/
│   ├── *.md
│   ├── *.json
│   └── archived/
└── evidence/
    ├── *.png
    └── *.pdf

The JSON files validate against schemas in schemas/. The markdown and HTML files are for human review. The evidence and research folders preserve the local trail behind the claims.

Source Acquisition

Spotlight's default source path is simple:

1. Search and scrape with Firecrawl.
2. Save the source artifact locally.
3. Archive or capture the source when preservation matters.
4. Cite only material that can be traced back to a local file.

Use dev-browser only for specific investigative tasks that require browser automation: dynamic pages, search forms, authenticated portals, rendered tables, downloads, visual evidence, or multi-step UI navigation. Firecrawl remains the first acquisition path for ordinary search and scrape work.

Integrations

Spotlight is runtime-agnostic, but investigations need specialized tools. The important integrations are: