How Vigil Professional works

The principle

Vigil Research is for understanding the system. Professional is for working with it. Professional consumes the same canonical corpus — the same questions, observables, ledgers, events, records and sources — and adds tools, depth and new authored material on top. It restates no assessment, carries no separate truth, and cannot be more confident about anything than the public record is. Where it adds content, that content is a new canonical record with its own review discipline, held to the standard in §10 of the methodology.

Nothing public moves behind the gate. Read, Explore, Map, Watch, the public Tempo series, Notes, Briefs, Profiles, Atlas and the public Standing Watchdemonstration remain public and are not reduced to make room for Professional.

The registers

Every statement a subscriber meets carries one of these labels, printed beside it. A label is never conveyed by colour alone, and no surface may present one register as another.

FACT

A dated, sourced occurrence the corpus records. It says what happened, not what it means.

ASSESSMENT

Vigil’s graded reading of the evidence, carrying its own confidence and review date.

USER ASSUMPTION

A condition the user chose to hold true for this run. Vigil does not say whether it will occur.

DERIVED CONDITIONAL IMPLICATION

What follows inside the Vigil system if the stated assumptions held — an authored rule citing the record it rests on, never a prediction.

UNKNOWN

Vigil has no reading, or the evidence needed to form one is not recorded.

NO COVERAGE

This series does not measure here. Distinct from a covered period with zero records.

NO MATERIAL CHANGE

The file was reviewed and nothing moved. A finding, not an absence.

SAVED WORK

Your own work. It references canonical records and is private to your account.

Freshness and staleness

Professional inherits the public site's three review bands — Recently reviewed, Review ageing, Review overdue — computed from a record's own review date (120 days current, 270 days ageing). Every Professional record prints the date it is as of, the date it was last reviewed and, where it has one, the date it last changed. There is no composite freshness score and no "updated N hours ago" language: a date is a date. A record whose canonical basis has gone stale carries that band; it is never hidden and never refreshed automatically.

Observable records

What it is. A canonical Watch question names the observables that would bear on it. An observable record extends one of those, by reference, with a dated reading in a stated register (observed, assessed, or unknown), the dated evidence that bears on it and which way, the countervailing evidence Vigil records, its stated limits, its system and Tempo context, and a review ledger of its own.

What it is not. Not a metric, not a threshold, not a probability, not a trend. It cannot mark an observable met — only the canonical Watch record does that, and the two are checked to agree at every build. It cannot restate the question or the condition.

What it uses. Brief items, key events, Analytical Notes, Tempo records and dated references, each named by id and resolved at build. An evidence entry that names no canonical basis fails the build.

How it is maintained. The parent question's weekly review is the check of every observable under it, so "last checked" is the parent's newest ledger date. The record's own ledger is written only when the reading moved, evidence was added, the observable was met or the record was retired. A quiet week costs nothing and is shown as such.

What you may infer. Where the observable stands on the stated date, on the evidence listed. What you must not infer. Whether it will be met, how close it is, or what a "direction" on an evidence entry adds up to — nothing sums directions. When evidence is missing the record says "no evidence recorded" and its reading is labelled unknown.

Professional Standing Watch

The same object as the public demonstration: a selection of canonical Watch questions organised around one exposure, with one authored relevance note per question and a portfolio review state derived from the questions' own ledgers. A Professional scope differs only in being maintained for subscribers and in declaring the sector lenses it serves. It carries no assessment, observable, ledger, source or confidence of its own and is reviewed by the weekly cycle that reviews its questions.

Tempo Lab

Every rule of the Map surface applies unchanged: Tempo is recorded activity, never effect, severity, probability or score. Tempo Lab may place several series on one time axis so their timing can be compared. It never normalises unlike series, never draws a combined line, never derives a percentage change, and always distinguishes a covered period with zero records from a period a series does not cover. A period comparison shows counts per series per window with each series' coverage stated. A chart exported from Tempo Lab carries the inclusion rule, the coverage, the bin size and the sources of every series it shows.

Tempo does not cover every module, by decision. A series exists only where Vigil has a defensible, repeatable inclusion rule it can apply consistently. Current coverage is Ukraine–Russia, Sahel, Caucasus, Syria, Taiwan Strait, Iran–Gulf and NATO Eastern Flank; the remaining modules maintain no activity series and their Tempo rail is absent rather than empty. A module without Tempo is not a quiet module, is not a less important one, and its absence is never evidence about the level of activity in that theatre. Vigil does not create a series for feature consistency, and the rule for adding one is the rule in the public methodology and nothing weaker.

Evidence Explorer and Query

Evidence Explorer walks the corpus's own references: the ledger entries behind a question, the brief items and events behind those entries, the sources behind those items, and the reverse — where a source is used, what a development bears on. It authors nothing. The Investigate workspace retrieves canonical records with a stated reason for each match (title, alias, keyword, source, connection) and filters on the records' own metadata. There is no generated answer, no chatbot and no ranking by confidence.

Network

Network draws references, not relationships of influence. Every line is one reference that one canonical record authors in one declared field — a formation's parent, a relationship record's parties, an event's named participants with their roles, a sustainment or system dependency with its basis, a Watch question's named records, a Note's cited records, an observable's evidence. It is read in that field's own vocabulary, and the record and field are printed with it. Nothing is matched by name, shared source, shared module, place or proximity, and the build test proves every line against the corpus's independent reference register.

Lines are kept in eight kinds — standing relationship, structure, typed association, recorded dependency, dated record, monitoring, reference, evidence — and never merged into "connected". An arrow is drawn only where the type defines a direction in the world. Dates stay attached to what they date: a stated validity, the date of the record the line belongs to, or the vintage of its claim; a review date is never a line's start or end. There is no weight, strength, score, centrality or importance anywhere; every record is drawn the same size and placement is a fixed layout that measures nothing.

A traced path is a chain of documented references under stated rules — the kinds of line it may use, a maximum length, shortest first — and is never presented as a causal chain or as the most important explanation. "No path within the limit" is not a finding that two records are unconnected. Saved investigations store record identifiers and the subscriber's own annotations, which print as SAVED WORK; a line sent to Brief Builder is cited to the record that authors it.

Economy & Logistics workbench

The workbench creates no knowledge of its own. It rearranges maintained records for specialist work. Every node on a canvas is a canonical record — a systems/ record keyed by the value the module's markers carry; a locations/ record, which is what a facility remains; an industry/ record, whose facility edges point at those locations and whoseproduces[] edges point at equipment/ records; a supply system, an exposure object or a transmission chain — with the same dates, grades and sources Read, Explore and Watch show. An edge is drawn only where two records name each other by id, and its stroke states its basis: solid where a published source or the record's own authored field documents it, dashed where Vigil assesses it, dotted where it is a derived join between ids two records already carry. No width, length, arrow or position encodes a quantity, throughput or capacity, because none is recorded.

The default canvas of each instrument is a summary: records grouped by their own authored type, role or claim kind, in stages derived from those fields, with the rest opening on request; the Full network view draws every id. A flow places a supply system's nodes in the record's authored order and in a stage derived from the node's role and the marker's type — an order, not a route, and its arrows are marked schematic because the record does not establish how cargo moves between two nodes; nothing joins two markers on the map. A commodity journey is built from the flows the module's exposure objects name for it, and a stage no flow reaches is named, never drawn.

An industrial organisation's dated claims are drawn by kind and never merged: an announcement, a target, a commissioning and a delivery are four different facts, and a producer edge is a statement that the record names the product, not a quantity or a delivery. A chain's edges carry the downstream step's basis — confirmed, plausible exposure, unconfirmed scenario — and can only weaken left to right; the chain stops where the evidence stops. A documented operational relationship and an assessed exposure are drawn differently because they are different kinds of claim. Every record carries its status date and its review date, and the inspector prints them with the basis.

Where the records are sparse — a system with no record, a flow with no storage node, a module with no industrial organisation — the canvas is sparse and says so in words; the coverage register and its structural audit hold the candidates. The compare tray sets pinned records side by side on their own fields and says not comparable where the fields differ. The standard is the one the rest of Vigil holds: no claim without a basis, and if it cannot be defended, it is not drawn.

Humanitarian & Resilience workbench

The workbench creates no knowledge of its own, and it grades no crisis. Every card is a canonical record: a humanitarian object — a civilian service, condition or pressure filed on the module's own humanitarian record — or a record it names by id: a locations/ crossing, corridor, port or published marker; a supply system; a civilian impact chain; terrain; asystems/ record, which stays an Economy & Logistics record and is opened there rather than copied. Each object carries its own status date and its own review date, kept apart — what it states is as of one date, and Vigil last checked it on another, or has not yet, which is said. Review cadence follows what decays: access, displacement and any running or flagged condition are reviewed on the fastest cadence; institutional and structural resilience on the slowest.

A condition is the module's own dated statement of where a system stands, written in one of three display registers — running, flagged, stated — and never a severity; an object with no condition says so, with the evidence it does hold. An access state is passage at a crossing, corridor, port or transport hub as that location's record states it, with its date; unknown is a state a source supports, and a point with none is not recorded, which is not closed. A reported restriction is not a closure. A dependence between two services is one the module states — a relationship, not a consequence, drawn dashed because it is an assessment. A civilian exposure is the chain's: each edge carries the downstream step's basis, a documented relationship and an assessed exposure are drawn differently, and the chain stops where the evidence stops. Nothing is added to complete a chain for symmetry.

Displacement is recorded as two named areas in the source's own words and the figure the movement rests on, at the source's precision and with that figure's vintage. No route, flow line, population point or density is drawn, an estimate is never rounded into a count, a regional figure is never narrowed into a place, and two figures from different windows are never added — the Vintages view sets them on a date axis so the difference is visible. A resilience measurestands on the rung its sources support — announced, in progress, in place, tested or used, lapsed — and the rungs are never merged: an announced programme is not capacity in place, and an exercise records what was rehearsed, not how a crisis would go. No country is scored and no resilience index exists.

Facilities are drawn only where the source itself published them; a module's own scope note can refuse even that, and Iran–Gulf's does for plant-level dependencies. Where the records are sparse — a module with no measure, a service in no stated dependence, a crossing with no recorded state — the canvas is sparse and says so, and the coverage register holds the candidates. Coverage differs by module and is not smoothed. A relationship is not drawn because it would be useful to see. It is drawn because Vigil can defend it.

Forces & Operations workbench

The workbench creates no knowledge of its own, and it grades no force. Every card is a canonical record: an organisation in the Force Atlas, with its command tree, its equipment claims, its doctrine block, its posture, its published seats, its dated changes and its sustainment edges; anequipment/ record with its variants, operators and producers; a campaigns/record with its frame, phases and participants; a terrain record; or a record the force names by id — a logistics/ record, a systems/ record or an industry/ record, each of which stays an Economy & Logistics record and is opened there rather than copied. The public Force Atlas prints the same records; the workbench rearranges them for work.

Force structure is not combat effectiveness. A command tree says who is subordinate to whom as the records state it, and nothing about strength, readiness, cohesion or performance; no formation is scored. Maximum technical range is not operational reach, and no range ring is drawn. A movement arrow is a claim. A deployment marker is a claim. A capability label is a claim. Every one of them requires a basis, and where no record states one, none is drawn: the canvases carry no arrow of advance, no attack axis and no disposition. A capability picture is documented equipment grouped by function — a grouping, never a score, and brochure capability is never drawn as field capability.

Doctrine is kept in four registers, never merged: published doctrine — a document a force issued, cited by title, issuer and date; stated and observed method — what the force says it does and is observed to do, with its date; assessed adaptation — what Vigil reads from repeated evidence, each dated and graded; and where the generalisation breaks down, which the record states against itself. A declared plan or an assessed contingency is a campaign record in a frame that is not an observed operation, and carries no timeline, status or outcome by construction. What a force publishes is never read as what it does.

An equipment claim stands on the fielding ladder — announced, ordered, delivered, fielded — on the rung its sources support, and the rungs are never merged: announced is not ordered, ordered is not delivered, delivered is not fielded. Every formation edge carries its evidence grade, documented kept apart from reported and prospective, and no edge carries a quantity or an allocation. A posture is an arrangement in the institution's own words — stated where the institution says it, assessed where Vigil reads it, with the exceptions an assessment requires — and never a place. A formation has a published seat only: the owner decision D2 stands, so the Atlas records a garrison or headquarters the institution publishes and no deployment, and a deployment report is not permanent basing.

A sustainment edge is a dependency, owned by Economy & Logistics. The force record authors the edge — onto a logistics record or a strategic system, with its nature, its basis (documented or assessed), its confidence, its sources and its date — and the record it points at stays where it lives. The system-facing view is computed from the force records, never authored twice. A dependency is never route geometry, a capacity or a stock; an edge a formation inherits from a command above it is marked via that command. A terrain constraint is the record's own statement of what the ground does to movement, and it is never read as operational intent.

Map discipline. A map shows points at the precision the record carries — a published seat as a square, a generalised military site hollow, a campaign's events as points stepped by phase — and discrete states as glyphs with a legend. No line joins two points, no arrow is drawn, no range ring is drawn, and no marker is a disposition. Where the records are sparse — a force with no documented system, a module with no doctrine block, a campaign with no phases, a formation with no sustainment edge — the canvas is sparse and says so in words, and the structural audit holds the candidates. Sparse data means sparse data. The standard is the one the rest of Vigil holds: no claim without a basis, and if it cannot be defended, it is not drawn.

Names and dates. An equipment record is one family under its own family name; its variants are the names the record lists, and a formation's claim names a variant only when that name is on the record — source terminology is kept and a normalisation is stated on the record, never made silently. Every force, equipment, campaign and terrain record carries two dates kept apart: the date what it states is assessed as of, and the date Vigil last reviewed it. Review cadence follows what decays — posture, fielding and running operations are reviewed faster than lineage, family identity or ground — and a review never refreshes an assessed-as-of date.

Compare

Comparison dimensions are drawn from the compared records' own fields — an actor's stated and assessed objectives, its constraints by kind, its leverage and red lines; a question's condition, observables and latest outcome; a series' inclusion rule, coverage and counts. Where either object lacks a dimension the cell says not comparable and why. No cell is filled to complete a row, and no similarity is scored.

Scenario Lab

A scenario does not say whether something will happen. It asks: if the stated assumptions held, which parts of the Vigil system become relevant, affected or stressed? The assumptions are the user's and are labelled USER ASSUMPTION. Each implication is an authored rule labelled DERIVED CONDITIONAL IMPLICATION, activated by the chosen assumptions, citing the canonical records it rests on (the VIGIL RECORD), the Watch questions and observables it bears on, and its own unknowns. Its confidence grade is confidence that the dependency exists in the record, never that the outcome occurs.

A template states what it does not model and the conditions under which its premise stops holding. Analogues are named records with stated matches, differences and limits of analogy, never "similar events". Nothing is generated at runtime: the tool shows and greys authored rules. No probability, escalation score, threat level or narrative is produced on any surface, to any reader.

How it is maintained. A template is reviewed monthly and whenever a Watch question it cites changes assessment; Monitor lists templates whose cited questions moved. A rule whose cited record is stale carries that record's band.

Brief Builder and exports

A briefing is assembled from canonical blocks the subscriber selects. Each block travels with its canonical wording, its dates, its confidence and its sources; the builder can place, order, remove and annotate a block, never edit its text. The subscriber's own paragraphs are labelled as the subscriber's. Exports (Markdown, print or PDF, JSON, and an evidence pack) carry the same provenance, the canonical URL of every block and the date the export was generated. An automated summary never alters Vigil's analytical meaning because none is produced.

Personal work and privacy

Follows, saved queries, comparisons, scenario runs, brief drafts, timelines and private notes are the subscriber's own and are stored as references to canonical records plus the subscriber's own text. Canonical research is never copied into a personal record; if Vigil corrects a record, every saved reference shows the corrected record. Personalisation changes what a subscriber is shown, never what Vigil assesses. Every personal row is deleted with the account. The privacy notice lists the fields.

Monitor and notifications

The Monitor is derived entirely from the review cycle's own records: material changes, quiet reviews, evidence added, Tempo changed, pending questions and Professional records reviewed. Nothing is written for it separately. A notification, where one exists, is delivery of a reviewed outcome — never detection, prediction or warning — exactly as §10 states.

Sector lenses

A lens — security, energy, maritime, commercial, defence industry, humanitarian, civil resilience, infrastructure, political — is a declared relevance on a scope, an observable record or a scenario template. It changes which records a reader with that exposure meets first. It creates no parallel corpus, no second assessment and no different confidence.

What a subscription does not change

One editorial standard, for everyone. Nothing is assessed differently, weighed differently or stated with more confidence because it is behind a subscription; a correction is issued and logged the same way. Payment buys access to Professional functionality and material, and nothing else.

What Vigil Professional is · Open Professional · Handbook · Terms