s4h-investigation-claim-decomposition

Investigation: Claim Decomposition

Complex claims are bundles. "The talent market has fundamentally shifted" contains claims about direction, magnitude, durability, cause, scope, and relevance — each independently falsifiable, each carrying different amounts of load. When people debate such a claim, they are usually debating different sub-claims without realizing it. Decomposition makes the hidden architecture visible: what is being asserted, what is being assumed, what is verifiable, and what is doing the actual load-bearing work.

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Your Process

Step 1: State the Master Claim Write out the claim in its current form. If it was stated imprecisely, note that — but trace it faithfully. Do not pre-interpret; decompose what was actually asserted.

Framing check: Confirm the specific claim before continuing. State what you've identified — the actual claim being decomposed and its apparent domain (factual, causal, normative, etc.) — in one sentence, then use AskUserQuestion:

• Question: "I'm reading this as: [your one-sentence framing of the claim and its domain]. Is that right?"
• Header: "Framing"
• Options:
  • Yes — proceed — framing is correct
  • Adjust — one element is off; user will correct it before you continue
  • Reframe — different claim than read; incorporate the correction before proceeding

Step 2: Decompose into Atomic Sub-Claims Break the master claim into the smallest independently assessable statements. Each sub-claim should be:

• A single, specific assertion
• Independently falsifiable (you could in principle evaluate it separately from the others)
• Not a combination of two ideas that are themselves separable

Common decomposition dimensions:

• Factual claims — assertions about what is true right now
• Causal claims — assertions about what causes what
• Trend claims — assertions about direction, rate, or duration of change
• Comparative claims — assertions about relative magnitude (more than, better than)
• Definitional claims — assertions about what a term means or what counts as X
• Normative claims — assertions about what should be done or what is good
• Scope claims — how broadly the main claim applies (always, usually, in some contexts)

Aim for completeness: a claim with 3 surface sub-claims usually has 6-10 once decomposed carefully.

Step 3: Classify Each Sub-Claim For each sub-claim, assign a classification:

Classification	Meaning
Verified	Well-established, supported by strong independent evidence
Checkable	Testable in principle; evidence exists or could be gathered
Contested	Active disagreement in the relevant domain; competing evidence
Uncheckable	Unfalsifiable by design (definitional, philosophical, or unprovable)
Assumed	Treated as true without being argued; load-bearing but unexamined

Step 4: Identify the Load-Bearing Sub-Claims Before narrowing: Show the complete list of classified sub-claims to the user first. Use AskUserQuestion:

• Question: "I've identified [N] sub-claims. Before I select the most load-bearing ones, are there any you'd flag as especially critical, or any I've missed?"
• Header: "Prioritise"
• Options:
  • Proceed with your selection — the set looks right
  • Flag one — user will name a specific sub-claim to include as load-bearing
  • Add a missing one — user will describe a sub-claim not yet listed

Not all sub-claims carry equal weight. Determine:

• Which sub-claims, if false, would cause the master claim to fail?
• Which sub-claims are doing heavy lifting that isn't acknowledged?
• Which assumed sub-claims are most at risk of being wrong?

These are the critical nodes: the sub-claims where investigation effort should concentrate.

Step 5: Map the Dependency Structure Do some sub-claims depend on others being true first? Build a simple dependency map: "Sub-claim C requires sub-claim A and B to hold." This reveals whether the whole claim stands or falls on a single contested premise.

Step 6: Recommend Verification Priorities Given the load map and classifications, what should be verified first? Rank by:

• How much load it carries (does the master claim fail if this is false?)
• How checkable it is (is verification feasible?)
• How likely it is to be wrong (is this an assumption that has been examined?)

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Human Check-in

Before proceeding, use the AskUserQuestion tool. State your interpretation of the situation in 1–2 sentences — what is being analyzed and what the core question is — then ask:

• Question: "My read: [your 1–2 sentence interpretation]. How do you want to proceed?"
• Header: "Scope"
• Options:
  • Full decomposition — Complete all steps: decompose, classify, map dependencies, recommend priorities
  • Decompose and classify only — List all sub-claims with classifications; skip dependency mapping
  • Load-bearing claims only — Focus on identifying which sub-claims are doing the most work
  • Refine the claim first — Clarify what exactly we're decomposing before starting

Proceed based on their selection. If the user reframes, incorporate the correction before running any analysis.

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Output Format

Master Claim

[The claim as stated]

Sub-Claim Decomposition

#	Sub-Claim	Type	Classification	Notes
1	[sub-claim]	Factual / Causal / Trend / Comparative / Definitional / Normative / Scope	Verified / Checkable / Contested / Uncheckable / Assumed	[Brief note]
2	...

Load-Bearing Sub-Claims

Highest load:

• [Sub-claim #] — [Why it's load-bearing: what fails if it's false]

Critical assumptions:

• [Sub-claim #] — [What is being taken as given; what would have to be true]

Dependency Structure

• [Sub-claim C] depends on [Sub-claim A] and [Sub-claim B]
• [The whole claim collapses if [sub-claim X] is false]

Verification Priorities

1. [Sub-claim #] — High load, checkable, hasn't been examined: [how to verify]
2. [Sub-claim #] — Assumed; likely the weakest point: [what would falsify it]
3. [Sub-claim #] — Contested in domain; worth checking current state: [what the debate is]

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Notes

Use investigation-evidence-audit once you've identified the load-bearing sub-claims and want to evaluate the evidence for those specific parts. Use investigation-source-trace when you want to know who first made the master claim and how it has changed. Claim decomposition is specifically about the internal architecture of a claim — not whether its evidence is good, but what it is actually asserting.

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What's Next

After delivering this output, use AskUserQuestion to offer the next move:

• Question: "Claims decomposed. What's next?"
• Header: "Next"
• Options:
  • /s4h-investigation-source-trace — Trace each component claim to its source
  • /s4h-investigation-evidence-audit — Audit evidence for each component claim
  • /s4h-logic-check — Validate the inference structure between claims
  • Done — Wrap up and synthesise what we have so far