--- title: "TRACE | The Verified Research Loop" description: "TRACE is a five-step research loop: Target, Retrieve, Assess, Cross-check, Export. Target writes the research brief before any search runs. Retrieve obtains…" image: "https://lenvanderhof.com/photos/len-portrait-1.jpg" --- 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 bookThe articleThe 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. ## Essays on this site - [What is TRACE?](https://lenvanderhof.com/en/blog/what-is-trace/) - [TRACE vs RAG](https://lenvanderhof.com/en/blog/trace-vs-rag/) ## Terminology - [TRACE](https://lenvanderhof.com/glossary/trace/) - [CALIBRATE](https://lenvanderhof.com/glossary/calibrate/) - [GRAIN](https://lenvanderhof.com/glossary/grain/) - [SENSE](https://lenvanderhof.com/glossary/sense/) - [AI agent](https://lenvanderhof.com/glossary/ai-agent/) - [Human in the loop](https://lenvanderhof.com/glossary/human-in-the-loop/) - [Override doctrine](https://lenvanderhof.com/glossary/override-doctrine/) 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/ ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "@id": "https://lenvanderhof.com/frameworks/trace/#term", "name": "TRACE", "description": "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.", "url": "https://lenvanderhof.com/frameworks/trace/", "inDefinedTermSet": "https://lenvanderhof.com/frameworks/" }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://lenvanderhof.com/frameworks/trace/#webpage", "url": "https://lenvanderhof.com/frameworks/trace/", "name": "TRACE", "description": "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.", "inLanguage": "en", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://lenvanderhof.com/#website" }, "about": { "@id": "https://lenvanderhof.com/frameworks/trace/#term" }, "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://lenvanderhof.com/frameworks/trace/#term" }, "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://lenvanderhof.com/frameworks/trace/#breadcrumb" } }, { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://lenvanderhof.com/frameworks/trace/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://lenvanderhof.com/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Frameworks", "item": "https://lenvanderhof.com/frameworks/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "TRACE", "item": "https://lenvanderhof.com/frameworks/trace/" } ] } ] } ```