Verify Claim & Find Credible Source

What It Does

Every source card in a Research Cafe has two buttons: Verify claim and Find credible source. Both run a background AI research loop that cross-references evidence and writes a verdict back to the source card.

• Verify claim — the agent extracts the source's main checkable claims, you pick which to verify and set a token ceiling, and the agent finds corroborating and opposing evidence from authoritative sources. A per-claim verdict badge appears on the card.
• Find credible source — for a weak or low-credibility source (e.g. a social post, a bare URL, or a source with no author/date), the agent finds a stronger, more authoritative source supporting the same claim and writes it to the card as an "upgraded citation."

Both features are available to all tiers (Free, Pro, Creator) and cost tokens.

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Verify Claim

How It Works

1. Open a Research Cafe and find a source card you want to verify.
2. Click Verify claim on the card. The dialog fetches the source's main checkable claims in a short preview pass — this is cheap and happens automatically when the dialog opens.
3. The dialog shows a selectable list of claims — the most checkable one is pre-checked. You can:
   • Leave the pre-checked claim selected
   • Select more claims ("verify all")
   • Type your own specific claim in the text field
4. Set a token-limit ceiling — the pre-filled default is sensible; raise it if you want a deeper search. The estimate updates as you change it.
5. Click Verify. The dialog closes and you return to the Sources column — the card shows a "Verifying…" state.
6. When the loop finishes, the card badge resolves to one of four verdicts.

The Verdicts

What "Couldn't Verify" Means

"Couldn't verify" is an honest answer, not a failure. There are several legitimate reasons the loop may reach this verdict:

• The claim is an opinion or subjective statement — these are not falsifiable and cannot be verified by evidence.
• The claim is very niche or recent — peer-reviewed literature may not exist yet.
• The agent searched within the token budget and found no strong evidence either way — the claim is underdocumented.

A "Couldn't verify" card shows everything the agent checked — the underlying sources it found, what it searched, and a summary of why verification was inconclusive. This gives you all the material to check the claim yourself.

Viewing the Evidence

Click View evidence on a resolved card to expand the verdict panel. For each claim you verified, the panel shows:

• The underlying source — the origin the claim traces back to (if found), as a clickable source card
• Supporting evidence — authoritative sources that corroborate the claim, with the relevant passage quoted
• Opposing evidence — credible sources that contradict the claim, with context
• A summary of the verdict

Every piece of evidence is a real source saved to your Cafe's Sources column, so you can read, enrich, and cite them. Click any evidence item to scroll to its source card.

How Deep Does It Dig?

You set the token ceiling before the run. The agent uses its own judgment to decide how deep to go — it may stop early if it finds strong, conclusive evidence quickly, or it may use more of the budget if the topic is contested. "Deep" verification does not mean it burns the whole budget; it means it is instructed to be thorough.

The budget is shared across all claims if you selected multiple. If the budget runs out before every claim is verified, the remaining claims resolve to "Couldn't verify — budget reached."

What It Costs

The verify loop is a mini research run: it uses your token balance to run web and academic searches. The cost estimate is shown in the confirm dialog before you commit — no tokens are charged until you click Verify.

Relative cost is similar to a Quick Auto-Research run on the same claim. Verifying a single focused claim is cheap; verifying many claims with a large token ceiling will cost proportionally more.

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Find Credible Source

When to Use It

Use Find credible source when you have a source that is:

• A bare URL with no author, date, or journal (URL-only metadata health)
• A social post (Reddit, X, TikTok, etc.) that makes a factual claim
• A low-credibility source where you want a better-cited version

The agent searches for a stronger, more authoritative source supporting the same claim and writes it to the card as an "upgraded citation."

How It Works

1. Click Find credible source on any source card.
2. A confirmation dialog shows the source summary and an estimate.
3. Confirm. The card shows an "Upgrading…" state.
4. When the loop finishes, the card shows an "Upgraded citation" section with a clickable link to the stronger source found — its title, type, credibility tier, and the passage it used to support the claim.

The upgraded source is saved as a real, enriched source card in your Cafe.

If No Better Source Is Found

If the agent cannot find a more authoritative source, the card shows a "Couldn't upgrade — no stronger source found" result. This means the claim is either well-represented in your existing source or there is simply no higher-credibility version available. No tokens are charged beyond what was spent searching.

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Durability — Runs in the Background

Both verify loops run as background jobs — the same as Auto-Research. Once you click Verify or Upgrade:

• You can close the dialog, switch tabs, navigate away, or close the browser — the run continues server-side.
• The verdict is saved directly to the source row in the database. When you come back, the card shows the resolved badge.
• You do not need to keep the dialog or the Cafe open while the loop runs.

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Tips

• Verify scientific or health claims first — these are highest-stakes and best served by cross-referencing peer-reviewed literature.
• One claim at a time is usually better than "verify all" — a focused single-claim verify costs less and produces a sharper verdict than a multi-claim run with the same budget.
• Raise the token ceiling for contested topics — if a topic has genuine scientific disagreement, the agent needs enough budget to find both sides.
• Use "Find credible source" after verifying — if a verify returns "Contradicted," you can immediately use "Find credible source" to find what the correct source actually says.
• Check the evidence cards — every piece of evidence the loop finds is a real source added to your Cafe. These are genuinely useful for writing — cite them directly, add them to your Tray, or use them in an Auto-Write report.
• "Couldn't verify" is useful — it tells you the claim is opinion-only or underdocumented, which is important context before citing it.

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Availability

Both features are gated by your token balance — if your balance is empty, the verify button will prompt you to top up.