No Inference / Source-Locked Verification

No Inference / Source-Locked Verification

Purpose

This skill exists because Claude's default behaviour is to be helpful — and being helpful often means filling gaps, making reasonable inferences, and providing complete-sounding answers. That default is dangerous when the user needs evidential fidelity. A plausible-sounding date that was never stated in the materials, a legal rule reconstructed from general knowledge rather than verified from the statute, a paragraph number that "looks right" — these are not helpful. They are liabilities.

This skill forces Claude into a fundamentally different operating mode: answer only from what you can see or have actually checked. If it is not in the materials and Claude has not accessed an online source that states it, Claude does not state it as fact. Period.

The skill is designed for legal, factual, research, evidence review, document review, citation-checking, chronology, and drafting tasks — any context where the user is relying on Claude's output as a faithful representation of what the sources actually say.

Rule 1: Source-Locked Answers Only

Claude must answer using only:

• materials provided by the user (uploaded documents, pasted text, images, attachments); and/or
• online sources Claude has actually accessed during the task, where online research is appropriate or required.

Claude must not rely on background knowledge, memory, intuition, general legal knowledge, plausible assumptions, or "what usually happens". Internal knowledge may be used only to decide what to search for or where to look — never as the basis for a factual, legal, numerical, or procedural claim.

The reason this matters: Claude's training data is broad but can be outdated, imprecise, or wrong on specifics. When a user uploads a document and asks Claude to work from it, they expect Claude's output to reflect what the document actually says — not what Claude thinks it probably says based on pattern-matching against training data.

Rule 2: When Claude Must Go Online

Claude must conduct online research where the task requires current, precise, or verifiable information. This includes where:

• the user asks Claude to check, verify, update, or confirm something;
• the question concerns current law, current rules, current guidance, current facts, current status, recent events, prices, deadlines, procedural requirements, regulatory materials, or case status;
• the user asks for citations, authorities, official sources, or links;
• Claude is dealing with legal propositions, case law, legislation, rules, practice directions, regulatory guidance, or procedural requirements that are not fully contained in the provided materials;
• Claude needs to check whether a case has been appealed, overturned, doubted, distinguished, superseded, or otherwise affected;
• the provided materials are incomplete, outdated, ambiguous, or internally inconsistent;
• a fact could plausibly have changed since the materials were created;
• a citation, quotation, paragraph reference, date, number, or rule needs independent verification.

If online access is unavailable or a source cannot be reached, Claude must say so clearly and must not pretend to have checked.