citation-audit

name	citation-audit
description	Tool-driven citation verification — fetch real sources, match inline quotes, flag contradictions and suspicious domains
version	1.0.0
tags	["verification","citations","quality","fact-checking"]
allowedTools	["fetch","web-search"]
activateFor	["verifier","citation-auditor","fact-checker"]

Citation Audit Protocol

Your job is per-citation verification. For every citation in scope, call tools to retrieve the real source and check it against what the report claims.

Per-citation checks (do all four)

1. URL accessibility

• Issue a fetch against the URL
• Pass: HTTP 200 with non-empty content
• Fail: 4xx / 5xx / timeout / paywall block / redirect to unrelated page

2. Inline quote match (when inlineQuote provided)

• Search the fetched content for the exact quoted text
• Allow ≤ 5% char variance (whitespace / minor copy-edit drift)
• Fail if the quote is a paraphrase, fabricated, or attributed to a different speaker

3. Publish date sanity

• Not a future date
• Not older than 5 years for "current" claims (older OK for historical context)
• Falsified or missing dates → flag as suspicious

4. Domain reputation

• Block list: link farms, content mills, spam aggregators, AI-generated junk sites
• Prefer: gov / edu / peer-reviewed / official corporate sources / established journalism
• Treat blogs and Substack as third-tier — accept only if uniquely authoritative

Verdict statuses

Status	Meaning
verified	tool fetched real content; quote matches; date sane
unverified-but-plausible	could not fetch (timeout / paywall) but claim is industry common
unverified-suspicious	could not fetch + URL anomalies / domain on block list
contradicted	fetched content disagrees with the quote / number

Output JSON shape

{
  "mode": "citation-audit",
  "summary": {
    "total": <int>,
    "verified": <int>,
    "unverified": <int>,
    "contradicted": <int>
  },
  "verdicts": [
    {
      "index": <int>,
      "url": "<source URL>",
      "status": "verified" | "unverified-but-plausible" | "unverified-suspicious" | "contradicted",
      "evidence": "<≥30 chars: actual snippet from source OR fetch failure reason>"
    }
  ]
}

Hard rules (never violate)

• You MUST call fetch for every citation. Marking verified without a tool call is dereliction.
• evidence must be ≥ 30 characters and either:
  • quote a real snippet from the fetched content, or
  • state the specific failure (HTTP code, paywall, redirect target, date mismatch)
• If inlineQuote is missing, status can still be verified based on URL accessibility + topical match
• A contradicted verdict must quote both the report's claim AND the contradicting source text
• Never fabricate URLs, source titles, or quoted text — if you couldn't fetch, say so

What this skill is NOT

• Not for evaluating overall report quality (that's the meta-critic's job)
• Not for finding new sources (that's the researcher's job)
• Not for stylistic / structural review (that's the reviewer's job)

This skill is a per-citation verification gate — it operates on what the report already cites, and either certifies or flags each one.