> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://atlas.rebuildingus.org/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# For civic teams
> How teams use Atlas to move from public discovery to briefs, monitoring, and renewal proof.
## Overview
Atlas helps civic teams turn scattered public information into a shared,
source-linked operating picture. A team can start with a public search, inspect
the evidence behind a person or organization, save the actors that matter,
create a brief, define coverage gaps, watch for change, and show what improved
over time.
This matters for nonprofits, newsrooms, foundations, unions, civic technology
groups, documentary teams, and public-interest researchers. These teams often
already know that good work is happening somewhere. The hard part is finding it,
trusting it, coordinating around it, and returning to it later without starting
the same research from scratch.
## The workflow
Search by place, issue, person, organization, initiative, or civic concern.
Atlas is useful only when the public map stays legible to people who are not
inside a customer workspace.
Open a profile and review the source links, dates, issue areas, places, and
related actors. A team should be able to understand where a claim came from
before using it in a story, proposal, field plan, or briefing.
Move relevant people, organizations, initiatives, or sources into a private
workspace list. Private notes and customer context stay in the workspace; public
records and source links remain reusable.
Turn the research into a decision artifact. A brief should summarize the
landscape, link back to actors and sources, name gaps, and give the team a clear
next step.
Create coverage targets for the places, issues, actor types, or source classes
the team needs to understand. Coverage makes the unknowns visible, which is often
as important as the records already found.
Follow actors, lists, places, issues, or coverage targets so the team can return
to meaningful changes instead of repeating manual searches.
Use the team workspace home to see briefs, coverage, monitoring, and renewal
proof in one place. The point is not to show every internal system. The point is
to help a team decide what to read, what to fix, and what to revisit.
## Team workspace operating picture
When a workspace is active, Atlas summarizes four things on the research home.
Solo operators see this as a personal workspace; organizations see it as a team
workspace with shared work and proof:
* **Briefs:** decision artifacts with sources attached.
* **Coverage:** targets that show what is ready and what still needs work.
* **Monitoring:** watched resources that keep recurring research visible.
* **Renewal proof:** usage and public-record improvement signals that explain
why the workspace is worth continuing.
The operating picture is intentionally small. A civic team should not need a
control room to understand whether Atlas is helping. The workspace home should
answer the practical questions: what has the team produced, where is coverage
thin, what is being watched, and what value can be shown later?
Each lane opens the work surface behind it. Briefs open saved decision
artifacts, coverage opens target review, monitoring opens watched resources,
and renewal proof opens the usage and public-record improvement packet on the
workspace page.
The counts are also careful about trust. A real zero stays visible as zero. A
lane that is still loading says so. A lane that cannot be loaded is named as
unavailable instead of being presented as empty activity. That distinction keeps
the workspace useful during demos, reviews, and renewal conversations because a
team can tell the difference between no work, work still loading, and missing
data.
The research home also keeps the next action tied to the same workflow. After a
team has started public discovery, followed an actor, and saved a list, the next
step moves into the private workspace loop: create a brief, define coverage,
choose monitoring, and then open renewal proof once work exists to review. This
keeps a demo or live customer session from ending at a static dashboard.
The monitoring page follows the same handoff. Watched actors and coverage
targets remain readable on their own, but the page also keeps coverage review and
renewal proof one click away. Monitoring should therefore feel like the middle of
the operating loop, not a separate inbox.
## Trust and privacy boundaries
Atlas makes claims about real people and organizations, so the workflow keeps
evidence close to every decision. Source metadata should travel with profiles,
briefs, exports, APIs, and MCP responses. Weak, stale, disputed, or unreviewed
claims should not look the same as stronger claims.
The workspace boundary is equally important. Customer notes, private strategy,
and sensitive delivery context belong in the private workspace. Public-safe
records, source improvements, methodology notes, and directory updates can
strengthen the public map when review and safety rules allow it.
When a user switches between a personal workspace and a team workspace, Atlas
keeps the private operating picture separated: briefs, coverage targets, watched
resources, watch buttons, and renewal proof are keyed to the active workspace.
That boundary matters because a team should never have to wonder whether a
private list, monitoring state, or renewal signal came from the wrong workspace.
## Common team patterns
### A newsroom preparing a local story
A reporter can search a city and issue, open source-linked profiles, save likely
interview leads, export sources, and create a short brief for an editor. If the
story becomes recurring coverage, the team can watch the issue or place for new
signals.
### A nonprofit entering a new geography
A program team can map existing organizations, identify allies, save outreach
lists, define coverage gaps, and return to the workspace as new records appear.
The goal is to build relationships with better context, not to duplicate local
work.
### A funder supporting public infrastructure
A funder can sponsor coverage for a place, issue, or civic ecosystem and review
what changed: new source-backed records, stronger public directories, clearer
gaps, and reusable methodology. Private grantmaking context does not need to
become public for the public map to improve.
## What to show in a demo
A strong demo should feel like one continuous user path:
1. Search a place and issue in the public directory.
2. Open a profile and inspect the sources.
3. Move useful actors into a workspace list.
4. Open a brief that explains the landscape.
5. Export evidence without losing source context.
6. Show a coverage target and the gaps it reveals.
7. Show watched resources and the workspace operating picture.
If the demo requires explaining internal pipelines, hidden states, or why a user
should trust unsupported data, the experience is not ready yet.
## What's next
Start with the public directory.
See workspace and team capabilities.
Understand sources, confidence, and review.
Use Atlas through an AI assistant.