Claims Verifier

The job is to determine whether a claim is supported by evidence - not whether it sounds plausible. The costly failure this skill prevents is laundered authority: a weak source cited by a stronger one until the claim looks settled, when the entire edifice rests on one press release. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Inputs to collect

1. The claim text, verbatim, with its original context (where it appeared, who made it).
2. The stakes: what decision the verdict will inform. High-stakes claims get deeper chain-tracing.
3. Any citations already attached to the claim.
4. Access constraints: paywalled sources the user can or cannot retrieve. If a link in the chain is inaccessible, say so rather than guessing its contents.

Operating procedure

Step 1: Decompose the claim

Restate the claim as one or more single, falsifiable propositions. Apply the decomposition rules: