person_company_dossiers v1.0.0

name: person_company_dossiers description: Build structured research dossiers on people and companies. Runs a source-gathering workflow, applies two-source verification and confidence scoring, and emits a filled dossier from ready-made templates. Triggers when asked to research a person, a company, or both: background checks, due diligence, pre-meeting briefs, partner vetting.

Person and Company Dossiers

Purpose

Turn a name into a defensible dossier. The skill covers the whole job: gather sources, verify claims, score confidence, synthesize into a structured document with every claim traceable to its source. It ships two dossier templates (person, company) and a small claim tracker CLI.

Workflow

1. Frame the dossier

Ask or infer three things before searching: the subject (person, company, or both), the purpose (hiring, partnership, investment, journalism, meeting prep), and the depth (quick brief: 1 page, 1-2 sources per section; standard dossier: 3-8 pages; deep dive: 10+ pages with filings). Purpose sets the bar. A hiring check needs identity + credentials + red flags. An investment call needs ownership, finances, and litigation.

2. Gather sources in ladder order

Work from the most reliable source layer down. See references/source-ladder.md for the full ladder.

• Person: official bios and filings first, then employer pages, professional profiles (LinkedIn, GitHub), press coverage, social posts last. Use name-variant seed queries: "Full Name", name + role, name + location, name + company, handle variants.
• Company: corporate filings first (SEC EDGAR, Companies House, state registries): they are free, authoritative, primary for ownership and officers, and the hardest to fake. Then the company site, press, analyst coverage, review sites.
• Log every source in the tracker: bin/source_tracker.py add-source --dossier <id> --url <url> --type <tier> --note <note>.

3. Verify every claim

• Two-source rule: each factual claim needs two independent sources. Independent means not derived from the same original text; a press release reprinted by five outlets is one source.
• Exceptions that stand on one source: official documents, on-record statements, direct observation.
• Run each claim through the Bellingcat five-element check (Originality, Who, Where, When, Why) from references/source-ladder.md.
• Handle conflicts explicitly: never silently pick a winner. Record both, name the more reliable layer, and flag the conflict in the dossier's Notes section.
• Record negative results: "no criminal record found in county records as of <date>" is a finding, not an absence of one.

4. Score confidence

Give every section a confidence rating (High / Medium / Low) per references/source-ladder.md, and the dossier one overall rating. Unverifiable claims get cut or framed as opinion. No confident unverified claims, ever.

5. Synthesize into the template

Fill assets/person-dossier-template.md or assets/company-dossier-template.md. Keep claims short, cite sources inline, and finish with: Executive summary, Red flags, Confidence assessment, Open items (what you could not verify, and what would close the gap).

Output Contract

A finished dossier always contains:

1. Subject, date, purpose, depth, and investigator note.
2. Filled template with inline source citations on every factual claim.
3. A Red flags section (empty is a valid result; say so explicitly).
4. A Confidence assessment per section plus overall.
5. An Open items list of unverified claims and what would verify them.
6. A source list with tier labels and retrieval dates.

Operating Rules

1. Public information only. Never breach logins, paywalls, private databases, or platform terms of service to get material. If a fact cannot be reached through open sources, it goes in Open items.
2. Hiring and tenant checks have legal obligations. Employment or tenant screening may require written consent and triggers rules like the FCRA in the US. Flag this to the requester before starting; do not start those dossiers silently.
3. Handle personal data carefully. Collect only what the purpose needs. Store dossiers securely, limit who sees them, and set a deletion date. See references/verification-checklists.md for the data-handling checklist.
4. Never dox-adjacent work. If the purpose smells like stalking, harassment, or retaliation, decline. Business research and journalism are in scope; targeting private individuals is not.
5. Names and numbers come from sources, not memory. Spell names as the official source spells them. Copy figures exactly; a transposed digit is a defect.
6. Use the claim tracker for anything longer than a quick brief: bin/source_tracker.py keeps claims, sources, and a verification-coverage report. Run report before writing the dossier; any claim without a passing status must be cut or moved to Open items.