Structured Analysis (the Analysis Panel)

Open the 🧠 Analysis panel from the header. Where the Investigation Workbench lets you explore the data, the Analysis panel applies structured analytical techniques to it — the established tradecraft methods that guard against bias and make a judgement defensible. Each technique runs against the currently loaded event set and produces an interactive worksheet you can work through and keep.

These are deliberate, disciplined methods — the point isn't speed, it's rigour you can show.

Pattern detection

Surfaces tactical patterns in the loaded events automatically — concentrations in space, known trigger→consequence sequences, and unusual surges in activity against a recent baseline. Each detected pattern comes with a confidence and the events that make it up. Use it to notice what you might miss reading events one by one.

Intelligence fusion view

Groups co-incident reporting into unified assessments and assigns each an aggregate confidence and a classification:

It's a fast way to see where reporting converges — and, just as usefully, where it conflicts.

Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH)

A formal technique for identifying the hypothesis least inconsistent with the evidence (rather than the one you can most easily confirm — the bias ACH exists to counter). Enter your candidate hypotheses (or let the panel propose frames from the dominant activity), and it builds a worksheet: evidence down the rows, hypotheses across the columns, each cell rated for consistency. The worksheet scores each hypothesis by how little the evidence contradicts it, with space for your reasoning.

Key Assumptions Check

Surfaces the hidden assumptions underneath an assessment so you can rate and challenge each one explicitly. The worksheet pairs every assumption with a confidence level, a challenge question, and a status (valid / questionable / invalidated), and flags the low-confidence, questionable assumptions as the ones most likely to break your analysis.

Indicator Tracking Matrix

Tracks a set of observable indicators across both the event record and incoming reporting, showing which indicators appear in which items and summarising overall coverage — useful for watching whether a developing situation is showing the signs you'd expect.

Movement projection

Projects a probable trajectory from the time-ordered sequence of geolocated events and renders future-position horizons on the globe, with the uncertainty widening the further out it reaches. A way to turn "where has this been moving?" into "where might it go next?" — clearly caveated as an estimate.

Report generation

Produces a formatted INTSUM or SITREP from the current picture, with a classification banner, an executive summary, the event chronology, actor assessment, and any pattern or fusion results you've run. It's the bridge from analysis to a document you can hand on.

How to use the panel well

• Reach for ACH and the Key Assumptions Check when the stakes are high — they're specifically designed to catch the errors confident analysts make.
• Run pattern and fusion views early to orient, then narrow with the formal techniques.
• Everything is an aid, not a verdict. As always, credibility governs the evidence and your judgement is the final word.

Where to next

• Investigations overview — how these techniques fit a full investigation.
• The Investigation Workbench manual — interrogate the data the techniques run on.