candidate-timeline-ingest

name	candidate-timeline-ingest
description	Gather research-stage candidate timeline events. Use when: creating or refreshing research/candidate-timelines/<candidateId>.json with event-level evidence and suppression rules.

Candidate Timeline Ingest

When to Use

• Building timeline research for one candidate
• Refreshing event statuses around nomination, scrutiny, withdrawal, or campaign shifts
• Adding historical public-record or political-career milestones that deepen the candidate chronology
• Converting loose prose into event-level evidence records
• Landing affidavit/declaration, assets, liabilities, case, education, or profession disclosures as voter-useful timeline events

Output

• research/candidate-timelines/<candidateId>.json

Procedure

1. Read docs/INGESTION_OPERATING_MODEL.md
2. Read the candidate facts JSON first
3. Add or update event records with source refs, tier, status, and review date
4. For declaration sources, prefer the latest reliable cycle plus one prior comparable cycle and collapse one affidavit page into one or two plain-language summary cards when possible
5. Match current-cycle wording to reviewed source strength and avoid certainty the evidence does not support
6. Allow historical events only when they are public-record or political-career relevant; avoid biography filler
7. Trigger ingestion-validator-agent and surface any findings; treat them as advisory unless standards-keeper adds a hold

Guardrails

• One candidate per task
• Tier 1 and Tier 2 remain the strongest evidence tiers, but Tier 3 can still support reviewed status wording when attribution and confidence stay explicit
• If the candidate facts row is withheld, do not create visible current-cycle events
• Do not create a declaration-specific public widget or flood the main route with many same-cycle microcards from one affidavit page
• Do not leave generic affidavit placeholder events when the source page already exposes case counts or concrete disclosure facts; summarize the actual cases, assets, liabilities, profession, or education instead
• When an affidavit source lists criminal or pending case counts, land one dedicated legal event for the case count and keep assets/liabilities or profile facts in a separate disclosure event
• Do not write directly into product timeline arrays unless explicitly asked

Handoff

• Safe product projection happens only after event-level review is complete