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# Source Grading
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Grade every source before citing a claim from it, using this scale. Record the grade
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next to the source in the source list (Step 3 of `SKILL.md`).
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## Grades
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- **A — Primary, authoritative.** Original data/docs/announcement from the entity the
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  claim is about (official documentation, a company's own filing/announcement, the
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  actual research paper, a firsthand account/interview with a direct participant).
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- **B — Primary, independent.** Firsthand reporting/analysis by an independent party
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  with direct access (a journalist who obtained documents, an independent benchmark
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  someone ran themselves, a practitioner's own writeup of their own experience).
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- **C — Secondary, reputable.** A summary/analysis by a source with a track record of
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  accuracy, citing its own sources (a reputable publication citing the primary source,
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  a well-regarded technical blog that shows its work).
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- **D — Secondary, unclear provenance.** Summarizes or claims something without
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  clearly citing where it came from; may still be useful as a lead to find the
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  primary source, but don't cite its claims directly without corroboration.
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- **F — Unreliable.** Anonymous/unverifiable claims, content with an obvious
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  undisclosed conflict of interest relevant to the claim (e.g. a vendor's marketing
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  page as the sole source for a competitive comparison), or a source with a known
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  track record of inaccuracy on this topic.
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## Rules of use
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- A-grade and B-grade sources can support a claim on their own. C-grade sources are
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  strongest when corroborated by at least one other independent source. D-grade
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  sources should not be the sole support for a claim in the final brief — use them to
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  find a better source, or explicitly flag the claim as weakly-sourced if none exists.
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- F-grade sources are not cited as support for a claim, ever — they can only be
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  mentioned if the brief is specifically discussing misinformation/the existence of a
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  claim, clearly labeled as such.
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- Grade the *source*, not the claim's plausibility — a source doesn't get a better
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  grade because you happen to agree with what it says. This is exactly the bias the
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  disconfirming-evidence search in `SKILL.md` Step 2 is designed to counteract.
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- Recency matters independently of grade: an A-grade source from 3 years ago on a
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  fast-moving topic (pricing, product features, personnel) needs a freshness check
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  even though its grade doesn't change.
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- Note conflicts of interest even on otherwise well-graded sources (e.g. a company
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  blog post is A-grade for "what the company announced" but should be flagged, not
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  treated as neutral, for "is this product actually good").
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