The short version
1
Start with a place and issue
Atlas begins with a question such as “Who is working on housing in Detroit?”
or “Which organizations are doing transit advocacy in Nevada?”
2
Find public sources
Atlas searches local journalism, organization websites, nonprofit directories,
public records, campaign pages, reports, and other public material.
3
Extract possible civic actors
The discovery engine reads sources and looks for named people, organizations,
initiatives, campaigns, and events tied to the place and issue.
4
Attach evidence
Each candidate record keeps the source title, publication, URL, date, source
type, and the source context that explains why the actor was extracted.
5
Merge duplicates and rank confidence
The same actor may appear in several sources. Atlas merges likely duplicates
and uses source density, recency, specificity, and contact surface to decide
how strongly to present the record.
6
Show gaps and uncertainty
Atlas should make thin, stale, partial, and uncorroborated areas visible. A
missing or weak result is a research signal, not something to hide.
What counts as evidence
Atlas can use different kinds of public evidence:
A source does not have to be a long article. A roster row, partner list,
contact block, table, or public record can be useful evidence when the context
is clear enough to show why the actor belongs in Atlas.
How a profile becomes useful
A useful profile is not just a name. It should answer four questions:- Who is this? The profile should identify a person, organization, initiative, campaign, or event.
- Where is the work happening? The profile should connect the actor to a place at the right level of specificity.
- What issue does it touch? The profile should connect to one or more issue areas without pretending the source proves more than it says.
- Why should I trust this? The profile should expose the source evidence, dates, and confidence signals behind the record.
Why discovery runs report gaps
Atlas is useful when it shows what it found and what it did not find. A team looking at Phoenix may have strong evidence for worker centers and immigrant rights groups, but weak evidence for environmental justice or broadband access. That gap matters because it tells the team where manual research, a new Scout run, or a local partner conversation should happen next. Gap reporting also protects the user experience. Atlas should not imply that a place has no civic work on an issue just because one search pass did not find enough public evidence.Ways to run discovery
The trust boundary
Atlas organizes public evidence; it does not certify that every source is complete, current, or correct. That is why source links, dates, extraction context, correction paths, and confidence signals are part of the core product experience. Read Trust and provenance before using Atlas for decisions that affect real people, outreach, publication, funding, or public claims.What’s next
Trust and provenance
What Atlas knows, how it knows it, and how to interpret uncertainty.
Browse walkthrough
Find housing organizers in Detroit and inspect the source evidence.
Team workflow
Build a source-linked briefing for a nonprofit entering Phoenix.
Scout CLI
Run Scout locally, sync to Atlas, and open the workspace run.