SKILL / Research
Plans: Pro & AgencyPublic-Source Research
Find and compare public information about a subject, separating findings from assumptions and gaps.
Read the step-by-step user guidePublic-Source Research answers the first question in almost every case: what does the public record actually say about this subject? Give Nexus a person, organization, project or topic, and the Skill gathers relevant public information, compares what different sources report and returns a structured brief. Each finding links to inspectable evidence, so you can open the source behind any statement. Supported findings, possible matches, contradictions and information gaps are labeled separately rather than blended into one narrative.
What you get
A sourced research brief that separates supported findings from inference and open questions.
Using Public-Source Research in an investigation
The brief is built for casework, not for reading once and discarding. Findings sit inside the case alongside your notes, so the evidence stays available when you write up your assessment, and the source behind any statement can be opened before you rely on it. Relevant people, organizations and identifiers can be added to the case relationship graph directly from the evidence, and the brief can feed a BLUF Situation Brief or, on the Pro and Agency plans, a structured PDF report later. Because it is one of the three core Skills available on every plan, Public-Source Research is a natural first Skill in a new case, before narrowing the objective with a more specialized Skill.
Use Public-Source Research when the subject is new to you and the objective is still broad: a preliminary background check, a first pass on a counterparty, a quick read on a name that surfaced in another investigation. It is deliberately general. When the question becomes specific — which profiles belong to this person, what the official registry records, how a story developed over time — hand off to the Skill designed for that question and keep everything in the same case.
Example objectives
Run the Skill directly, or describe the objective in your own words — these are the kinds of questions it is built to answer.
Ask Nexus
“What is publicly known about the company named in this contract, and where do sources disagree?”
Ask Nexus
“Build a background brief on a consultant named in a supplier agreement, separating what is confirmed from what is only claimed.”
Ask Nexus
“What public information exists about this project name, and what remains unknown?”
How Public-Source Research fits the investigation
A Skill is one move inside a case. The findings stay in the case file, where the evidence behind them can be checked, graphed and reported.
- 01
Choose or describe
Pick the Skill from the Skill Library, or describe the objective in your own words and let Nexus work out which Skills fit the question.
- 02
Review the evidence
Open the evidence record behind any finding and read the original public source before you rely on what it says.
- 03
Add to the case graph
Promote the people, organizations and identifiers you accept into the case relationship graph, straight from their evidence records.
- 04
Brief and report
Turn the case into a BLUF situation brief and, on Pro and Agency, into a structured PDF report with chain of custody.
Evidence before conclusions
What Public-Source Research cannot establish
Nexus keeps supported findings, possible matches, contradictions and information gaps apart instead of blending them into one narrative. These are the boundaries Public-Source Research states up front.
- Public-Source Research works from information that is publicly available. Material that is private, paywalled or access-restricted may not be discoverable.
- An unsuccessful search does not establish that information is absent, and a name match in a source is not proof that the source refers to your subject.
- The brief supports your assessment. Attribution, ownership and wrongdoing remain conclusions for the investigator to draw from the evidence.
Best for
Teams that reach for Public-Source Research most often.
Related OSINT concepts
The vocabulary this Skill works in, defined in the glossary.
Related Skills
Skills investigators commonly run next, in the same case.
Frequently asked questions
What does Public-Source Research return?
Public-Source Research returns a structured brief about the subject. Each finding is linked to the evidence that supports it, so the source can be opened and checked. The brief separates supported findings from possible matches, notes where sources contradict each other and lists information gaps that remain open. Findings stay in the case, where they can be added to the relationship graph, annotated in notes or, on Pro and Agency, exported into a PDF report.
Which Nexus plan includes Public-Source Research?
Public-Source Research is one of the three core Skills included on every Nexus plan, so a first-pass background brief never needs an upgrade. Pro and Agency include it alongside the wider Skill Library (43 of the 47 investigative Skills on Pro, all 47 on Agency), which adds specialized research, identity, business, media, infrastructure and Web3 Skills.
How is Public-Source Research different from a web search?
A web search returns a list of links and leaves the comparison to you. Public-Source Research is an agentic OSINT Skill: Nexus works toward a defined objective, compares what different sources report and returns findings that are linked to inspectable evidence. Contradictions and gaps are recorded rather than smoothed over, and the results live in a case where they can be graphed, annotated and reported.
Does a no-result mean there is nothing public about the subject?
A no-result in Public-Source Research means that Nexus did not find relevant public material within the scope of the investigation. Information may exist behind paywalls, in restricted archives, under a different spelling or in sources that were not part of the search. Treat a no-result as an information gap to record, not as evidence that the subject has no public footprint.