Methodology

The badge is checkable

Every freshness chip and trust badge on Trends reads from the same live desk state shown below. If the desk is stale, partial, fallback, or unavailable, this page shows the reason instead of asserting readiness.

How this desk is built

The desk runs on a daily cadence. Each morning, a fresh snapshot is materialized from the previous 24 hours of verified evidence, ranked against the weights below, and held to a freshness contract before it lands. 4 lead narratives max, balanced coverage beyond that.

Discovery sources are preserved, but primary-source authority is surfaced whenever it is known. Premium content remains summary-only.

Lead narratives require operator relevance, provenance rows, explicit last-verified timestamps, and more than one source. If the day only has single-source evidence, the desk remains partial and publishes no lead briefing until corroboration improves.

Ranking weights

Operator relevance
35%
How directly the signal helps an operator decide or build today.
Corroboration
25%
Independent sources confirming the same development.
Authority
20%
Primary-source weight and publisher track record.
Freshness
10%
Recency of the latest verified evidence in the window.
Day-over-day
10%
Velocity of change since the previous desk snapshot.

Placement rules

Only 3-4 lead narratives should dominate the desk.
A healthy desk must have at least one multi-source lead; if the day only has single-source evidence, the lead slot stays empty instead of pretending corroboration exists.
Every healthy lead slot requires multi-source evidence.
ScienceToStartup takes must add a proprietary judgment rather than restating the commercialization angle.
Topic/entity pages are promoted only after they reach dossier-ready depth thresholds.

Snapshot state

Last Materialized Snapshot: 2026-06-08
Latest Public Evidence: 2026-06-08T21:29:57.000Z
Next Scheduled Publish: 2026-06-09T21:00:00.000Z
Data origin: database
Current Trust State: Building

Desk receipts

{
  "surface": "trends_methodology",
  "snapshot_date": "2026-06-08",
  "target_snapshot_date": null,
  "methodology_version": "trends-desk-v3",
  "snapshot_hash": "5ca8fc6b70ca8e0e",
  "active_window_days": 7,
  "desk_status": "partial_source",
  "trust_state": "building",
  "trust_reason": "Materialized 1 public narratives for 2026-06-08, but no lead briefing met the public lead floor.",
  "materialized_snapshot_date": "2026-06-08",
  "latest_public_evidence_at": "2026-06-08T21:29:57.000Z",
  "next_scheduled_publish_at": "2026-06-09T21:00:00.000Z",
  "public_observed_at": "2026-06-08T21:34:03.239Z",
  "ranking_weights": {
    "operatorRelevance": 35,
    "corroboration": 25,
    "authority": 20,
    "freshness": 10,
    "dayOverDayMovement": 10
  },
  "api": "/api/trends/methodology"
}