Get an answer you can trace back to sources

The situation

You don’t need a survey of the topic. You need the answer, and its receipts.

• What you have

  A question with a real decision behind it — something a colleague will ask you to back up. You know what you’re asking; you just don’t have the reading.

• What goes wrong

  A chat answer arrives fluent and unsourced. It reads as settled whether the material behind it is thorough, thin, or absent — and you can’t tell which.

• What actually helps

  A direct answer that names the sources under it, states the trade-offs around it, and says plainly which part of your question the evidence never reached.

Start here

One question in Summary, and usually one stop

What you get

An answer with its working shown

Three cuts from one Source Brief. What’s inside a Source Brief →

• The answer, up front

  SOC 2 Type II for Mid-Market Fintech Sales

  Answer

  Not formally required. In the documented cases, procurement accepted a Type I report plus a dated Type II commitment S2source 2 S4source 4, though two vendors report losing deals at security review without a completed Type II S5source 5.

  Your question sets what the brief is about — its title names that subject — and the answer comes first, with its sources.

• A finding you can check

  What the evidence shows

  Type I clears the first gate

  Four of six sources describe Type I as sufficient for initial vendor onboarding when a Type II date is committed S1source 1 S2source 2 S4source 4.

  Open a citation to read the extracted evidence, or the source in context.

• Where the sources ran out

  Evidence gaps & caveats

  • ○No source covers EU or UK buyer requirements.
  • ○Two of six sources are vendor-published; the pricing of audit work is single-perspective.

  The edge of the answer, stated as a section rather than left for you to notice.

Why there are two of these

The same sources can answer two different requests

Ask a question and you get an answer, with your question as its subject. Point at the reading and you get a map of what the sources collectively say.

A worked run

A compliance question, asked cold

1. The question

   “Is SOC 2 Type II required to sell to mid-market fintech?”

   Find sources & createMode · Summary

   The link fills in the prompt only — choose Summary in the composer before you create.

   No tabs, no reading list. Six sources discovered and read.

2. What came back

   • •A direct answer: not formally required, but buyers treat it as a gate S2source 2 S4source 4
   • •Findings, including one that reframes the problem as the security questionnaire S5source 5
   • ○Open: No source covers EU buyers
   • ○Open: Two of six sources are vendor-published and marked single-perspective

   Enough to answer the question — and enough to know not to extend the answer to Europe.

3. The next meaningful action

   1. Add sources
   2. variant 2

   For a US-only launch, none — the brief is the answer. If Europe matters, add sources for it and read the updated variant beside the original, which stays Primary. If the question becomes “so what do we do”, Turn into… a Recommendation Brief — no comparison needed in between.

Where you can go next

• Primary brief type

  Source Brief

  The full section order and evidence behavior of the brief this job produces.

• Easily confused with

  Source Summary Brief

  Same sources, different subject: it maps what the reading says instead of answering your question.

• Too early if

  Research an open question

  Your question is still forming, or you’d be guessing at the options. A direct answer would overstate what’s known.

• Can lead to

  Recommendation Brief

  When the answer has to become an action someone signs off on. A comparison isn’t a required stop in between.