// QUESTION CLASS

What is the thing, structurally?

Most intelligence consumers want a forecast. But you cannot produce a defensible forecast without an equally defensible baseline — the structural facts about the subject that don't change week to week. The Foundational engine produces that baseline. An organization's architecture, chain of command, and key dependencies. A person's career arc, public positions, networks. A system's components, interfaces, and known failure modes. These are the reference documents that anchor every other engine's work. Foundational reports are longer than the others because they are built once and then used. A good baseline outlasts the question that prompted it. The output is organized as a reference document, not a narrative — the reader will come back to specific sections, so every section must stand alone.

Foundational

"Produce a baseline profile of [organization]: structure, leadership, known subsidiaries, known partnerships, key decision-making authorities."

Foundational

"Map the public career and documented positions of [individual] with attention to policy orientation on [topic area]."

Foundational

"Describe the structure and known dependencies of [country]'s [system, e.g., power grid / financial clearing / port operations]."

Foundational

"Produce a reference document on [industry sector]'s supply chain, including choke points and single-source dependencies."

// ANATOMY

A Foundational report contains:

A Foundational report is structured as a reference, not a narrative. The reader does not read it cover to cover; they come back to the section they need. Every section is independently coherent and cross-referenced to others. The "Open Questions" section is mandatory — it names the specific gaps in the baseline so that downstream analysis knows what it's building on. This is the only engine whose output is expected to outlive the question that prompted it.

§ 01

Overview

What the subject is, in one page

§ 02

Structure

Components, hierarchy, constituent parts

§ 03

Relationships

Internal and external dependencies

§ 04

History

Formative events, trajectory

§ 05

Capabilities and Limitations

What it can and cannot do

§ 06

Open Questions

What we don't know, and why

§ 07

Sources

Full bibliography, annotated

// STRUCTURE, RENDERED

The shape of the thing.

ENTITY RELATIONSHIP GRAPH

// VISUAL · PHASE 2B

// WORKED EXAMPLE

From question to brief.

// THE KIQ

"Produce a baseline profile of [multinational entity]'s operational structure, including its subsidiaries, its declared partnerships, and the chain of authority for its publicly-announced initiatives."

// PIPELINE TRACE

// INTAKE
PIOT complete. Population: [entity] + subsidiaries + partnerships
Indicator: structural composition · Outcome: reference baseline
Timeframe: current-state

// DECOMPOSITION
8 sub-questions, baseline class:
  · Formal structure (charter, bylaws, filings)
  · Declared subsidiaries and ownership chains
  · Declared partnerships (joint ventures, affiliations)
  · Leadership (named officers, public roles)
  · Board composition and dynamics
  · Decision-making authority (documented)
  · Reporting lines for current initiatives
  · Known internal factions or coalitions

// RUN
Sources scanned: 3,214
Sources incorporated: 287 (filings: 114, news: 98, research: 47, public speeches: 28)
Entities identified: 63
Relationships mapped: 184
Open questions flagged: 9

// OUTPUT
Reference document: 4,100 words, 287 footnotes, 3 structural diagrams.

// SAMPLE OUTPUT EXCERPT

[Entity] is organized as a federated structure with a central coordinating body and seven semi-autonomous regional operating units.¹ The central body, formally titled [title], holds authority over budget allocation and strategic direction but does not directly manage regional operations.² Each regional unit reports quarterly to the central body and has discretion over its own staffing and partnerships, subject to a published approval matrix.³ This structure was established in its current form following the 2022 reorganization;⁴ prior to that date, the entity was organized as a unitary body with direct regional reporting…

// TRADECRAFT

A baseline earns trust by being boring, correct, and complete.

Every structural claim has a documentary source.

Baseline reports are read by people who need to cite them. If a claim appears without a footnote, it does not appear. Oral history, analyst inference, and "widely understood" are not source categories; they're flags to investigate or to exclude.

ICD 206 · Full source attribution

Open questions are a section, not a footnote.

Every baseline has gaps. An honest baseline names them explicitly — the question we couldn't answer, the source we couldn't reach, the contradiction we couldn't resolve. This is the difference between a reference document and a PR document.

ICD 203 · Standard 2: Properly expresses uncertainties

The baseline is versioned.

Foundational reports are stable — but not static. When a structural fact changes (a merger, a new appointment, a doctrinal shift), the report is re-issued with a new version, and the change is diffed at the top. No silent updates.

ICD 203 · Standard 7: Explains change to analytic judgments

Often paired with: Current Developments (the baseline Current monitors against), Anticipatory (the baseline a forecast projects from).

// AUTHORED BY