Framework

TRACE The Verified Research Loop

TRACE is a five-step research loop: Target, Retrieve, Assess, Cross-check, Export. Target writes the research brief before any search runs. Retrieve obtains the source bodies, not one confident pass. Assess appraises what each body can bear per claim; tiers are source roles, not credibility weights. Cross-check records what each source supports or contradicts, and maps shared origins. Export is a versioned decision memo a co-founder can act on. Fluent collection is not research. TRACE is the verification structure.

The moves
5

When to use it

Use it when a clean, confident answer is about to move a market, a hire, a regulation check, or a deal, and nobody can point at the source behind the number.

The moves

  1. 01

    Target

    Write the research brief first: the decision, the bounded question, scope, exclusions, deadline, and stop rule, before a single search runs.

  2. 02

    Retrieve

    Obtain the actual source bodies, and log what stayed inaccessible, instead of trusting one confident pass.

  3. 03

    Assess

    Appraise what each source body can bear for this claim. The tiers (primary, secondary, advocacy, grey) are source roles, not credibility weights.

  4. 04

    Cross-check

    Record one relation per source for each claim and map shared origins. Corroboration is not a document count.

  5. 05

    Export

    Ship a versioned decision memo, traceable to the claim ledger, that a co-founder or investor can act on without redoing the work.

The book

Available now

The Verified Research Loop

Deep Online Research for Entrepreneurs Using AI Without Trusting It Blindly

Open the book
The article The series

Related frameworks

CALIBRATE

The Calibrated Mind

CALIBRATE is the practice of matching the strength of a judgment to the strength of the evidence, then updating when the facts move. Confidence is a report, not a personality trait. A loud claim with a thin source is a calibration failure, not conviction.

GRAIN

The RAG Engineer

GRAIN is a retrieval loop: Gather, Rank, Assemble, Inspect, Navigate. Gather governs the corpus: sources, permissions, and versioning. Rank retrieves candidate passages and reranks them for the question actually asked. Assemble builds the context the model may see. Inspect traces a wrong answer back to the chunk and retrieval decision behind it. Navigate keeps the index fresh: TTL policy, re-ingest, and change detection. If you cannot point at the passage, you do not have retrieval. You have a fluent guess.

SENSE

AI Agents for Startup Strategy

SENSE is a five-move strategic intelligence layer: Scan, Evaluate, Navigate, Simulate, Execute. It turns agent work from a productivity shortcut into a sourced claim that changes a watchlist, an assumption register, or a Monday decision.

Terminology

Not a vendor research product, not RAG, and not a generic “research loop” slogan. TRACE is the named system in The Verified Research Loop, available now in English and Dutch paperback, hardcover, and Kindle.

Citation

TRACE (The Verified Research Loop). Len P. van der Hof, Systems for the Strategic Self. https://lenvanderhof.com/frameworks/trace/

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