Use evidence and corrections

Overview

Trust in Atlas comes from the connection between an actor, the claim being made, and the public source that supports it. Sources show where a record came from. Flags let users report stale, broken, or incorrect evidence. Use this guide when you are building an integration that displays, exports, or reviews Atlas data. For exact source and flag schemas, use the API reference.

Treat sources as part of the result

When an API response points to an actor, the useful unit is not just the actor’s name. It is:

Actor.
Place.
Issue or claim.
Source URL.
Source title or publication context.
Excerpt or extraction context.
Retrieved or published date when available.

Keep those fields together in exports, briefs, queues, and CRM records. A source shown later without the actor and claim it supports is easy to misread.

Inspect sources for one actor

curl "https://atlas.rebuildingus.org/api/entities/{entity_id}/sources"

Use entity sources before:

Publishing a public list.
Sending outreach.
Importing actors into a team system.
Summarizing a local civic network.
Making a high-stakes decision from a single record.

Inspect sources for a place

curl "https://atlas.rebuildingus.org/api/places/kansas-city,missouri/sources"

Place sources are useful for local review, coverage analysis, and detecting when one source family dominates a result set.

Know what a source can and cannot prove

A source can support a specific claim such as:

An organization exists.
A person is publicly associated with an organization.
A campaign happened in a place.
A source described an issue connection.

A source does not automatically prove:

Current activity.
Quality or impact.
Endorsement by Atlas.
That every issue tag is equally strong.
That private workspace notes should become public evidence.

Use flags as correction signals

Flags are correction reports. They should prompt review; they are not final judgments by themselves. Report an actor problem:

curl -X POST https://atlas.rebuildingus.org/api/entity-flags \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "entity_id": "entity-abc123",
    "reason": "Organization closed in 2025",
    "flag_type": "stale"
  }'

Report a source problem:

curl -X POST https://atlas.rebuildingus.org/api/source-flags \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "source_id": "src-abc123",
    "reason": "Link is broken",
    "flag_type": "broken_link"
  }'

When you display flags in an internal workflow, include the original source context so reviewers can decide whether to update, remove, or keep the record.

Correction workflow

Keep the original source

Do not drop the source URL or extraction context just because someone filed a flag.

Check the claim

Decide which specific claim is stale, incorrect, duplicated, or unsupported.

Find stronger evidence

Add or prefer newer public evidence when it changes the record.

Record the review result

Preserve the review state in the workspace or moderation workflow.

Next steps

Find source-backed actors

Keep actor records connected to evidence.

Trust and provenance

Understand how Atlas presents source-backed claims.

Workspace visibility

Keep correction review state separate from public evidence.

API reference

Check exact source and flag schemas.

API

MCP and agents

Workspace access

Tutorials

Open source

Use evidence and corrections

Overview

Treat sources as part of the result

Inspect sources for one actor

Inspect sources for a place

Know what a source can and cannot prove

Use flags as correction signals

Correction workflow

Next steps

Find source-backed actors

Trust and provenance

Workspace visibility

API reference

​Overview

​Treat sources as part of the result

​Inspect sources for one actor

​Inspect sources for a place

​Know what a source can and cannot prove

​Use flags as correction signals

​Correction workflow

​Next steps

Find source-backed actors

Trust and provenance

Workspace visibility

API reference

Overview

Treat sources as part of the result

Inspect sources for one actor

Inspect sources for a place

Know what a source can and cannot prove

Use flags as correction signals

Correction workflow

Next steps