# Scoutpost — full public AI reference

> AI-powered monitoring infrastructure for investigative and local journalism. Scoutpost runs scheduled scouts across public pages, news coverage, social profiles, civic records, and transport activity. It extracts source-linked information units, deduplicates repeated coverage, and gives journalists and AI assistants a searchable knowledge base with a human verification boundary.

Last updated: 2026-07-13. Canonical source: https://www.scoutpost.ai/llms-full.txt

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## Product overview

Scoutpost helps journalists stop re-checking the same pages, feeds, and public
records. A scout runs on a schedule, finds meaningful changes or new material,
and creates information units: atomic, source-linked leads. Repeated coverage
is deduplicated into a shared knowledge base, rather than becoming a pile of
chat transcripts or alerts.

Scoutpost is for investigative workflows, local reporting, and continuous
newsroom monitoring. Journalists use the web app; AI assistants can work
through MCP, REST, or the `scout` CLI. Hosted Scoutpost is available at
https://www.scoutpost.ai, and the open-source (AGPL-3.0) product can be self-hosted.

### Product principles

- **Monitoring, not a one-off search:** scouts run on schedules and retain
  their history.
- **Every story, once:** repeated reporting is deduplicated to underlying,
  source-linked information units.
- **A newsroom knowledge base, not a chat log:** units carry sources,
  timestamps, verification state, and links to related entities.
- **Agents work with editorial guardrails:** agents can configure monitoring,
  search, organize, export, and draft, but human verification remains the
  publication boundary.
- **Evidence when it matters:** Page Scouts can optionally retain
  tamper-evident captures.

## Scout types

| Scout | What it watches | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| Page Scout (`web`) | One URL for meaningful changes | press rooms, dockets, filings, policy pages |
| Beat Scout (`beat`) | A topic, geography, or both across relevant coverage | housing, procurement, climate, education, towns, districts |
| Social Scout (`social`) | Public social profiles, including deletions | politicians, agencies, campaign accounts |
| Civic Scout (`civic`) | Council materials, agendas, minutes, and PDFs | promises, decisions, deadlines, public spending |
| Fleet Scout (`transport`) | Watched vessels or aircraft entering a defined area | transport, conflict, environment, accountability reporting |

Fleet Scouts use a named watch list (up to 20 IDs). Vessels
require a geofence; aircraft may be globally watched or geofenced. They support
3-hour, 6-hour, 12-hour, or daily schedules.

## Core concepts and editorial boundary

- **Scout:** a scheduled monitoring job.
- **Information unit:** one atomic fact linked to its source and timestamps.
- **Project:** the container for scouts, units, and exports.
- **Verification:** the human editorial checkpoint.
- **Page Archive:** opt-in tamper-evident evidence snapshots for Page Scouts.
- **Credits:** the hosted cost model for scout runs.

Unverified units are leads, not confirmed or publishable facts. A verified unit
is editor-approved. When summarizing, agents must include source URLs and
verification state, and must surface contradictions rather than choose a side.

## Page Archive

Page Archive is an opt-in, Pro/Team-gated feature on hosted Scoutpost. A Page
Scout can capture MHTML, a screenshot, markdown, artifact hashes, an RFC 3161
trusted timestamp, and—unless the newsroom disables it—a public Internet
Archive/Wayback submission. Enable or disable it with `archive_enabled` (and
optionally `wayback_enabled`) when creating or updating a Page Scout.

- CLI: `scout scouts add` or `update` with `--archive-enabled true`
- MCP: `create_scout` or `update_scout` with `archive_enabled: true`
- REST: `POST /scouts` or `PATCH /scouts/:id` with `archive_enabled: true`

List snapshots with `scout snapshots list --scout <id>`, MCP
`list_snapshots`, or `GET /snapshots?scout_id=<id>`. Download an artifact with
`scout snapshots download`, MCP `get_snapshot_url`, or
`POST /snapshots/:id/url`. Archived snapshots show what a page contained at
capture time; they do not prove that a particular person saw it.

## Agent workflow

1. Identify what the journalist wants to monitor and select the appropriate
   scout type.
2. Confirm before creating, running, changing, or deleting anything; disclose
   the expected spend for Civic Scouts, Fleet Scouts, or large batches.
3. Use scouts and units to find, organize, and summarize leads.
4. Treat unverified units as leads and cite their sources.
5. Let a human verify or reject units before treating claims as publishable.

If both the CLI and MCP are available, shell-capable agents should prefer the
CLI because the commands remain visible in the transcript. In self-hosted
deployments, use the newsroom's own app, API, and MCP URLs rather than assuming
the hosted Scoutpost endpoints.

## Integrations

- **MCP:** https://www.scoutpost.ai/mcp (OAuth 2.1 for hosted Scoutpost)
- **REST API:** https://www.scoutpost.ai/functions/v1
- **OpenAPI:** https://www.scoutpost.ai/functions/v1/openapi-spec
- **Swagger UI:** https://www.scoutpost.ai/swagger
- **CLI:** https://github.com/buriedsignals/scoutpost-os/blob/main/cli/README.md
- **MCP bridge:** https://github.com/buriedsignals/scoutpost-os/blob/main/mcp/README.md

The shared agent contract includes listing, creating, inspecting, running,
pausing, resuming, and deleting scouts; listing and searching units; verifying
or rejecting units; marking units used in an article; exporting project
material; and working with Page Archive snapshots.

## Hosted credits

| Scout type | Credits per run | Schedule |
|---|---:|---|
| Page Scout | 1 | daily, weekly, monthly |
| Beat Scout | 7 | daily, weekly, monthly |
| Social Scout (Instagram/X/TikTok) | 2 | daily, weekly, monthly |
| Social Scout (LinkedIn) | 7 | daily, weekly, monthly |
| Social Scout (Facebook) | 15 | daily, weekly, monthly |
| Civic Scout | 10 | weekly or monthly |
| Fleet Scout | 1, plus 1 if natural-language criteria run | 3h, 6h, 12h, daily |

Hosted tiers are Free (100 credits/month), Pro (1,000), and Team (5,000 shared
credits/month plus 1,000 per seat). Civic runs that do no billable work are
refunded. Civic Scout and Fleet Scout are Pro-gated on hosted Scoutpost, and
Page Archive is available on Pro and Team. Team members share credits; scouts
remain individually owned.

## Public resources

- Overview: https://www.scoutpost.ai/overview.txt
- Docs: https://www.scoutpost.ai/docs
- Docs text: https://www.scoutpost.ai/docs.txt
- Pricing: https://www.scoutpost.ai/pricing
- Pricing text: https://www.scoutpost.ai/pricing.txt
- FAQ: https://www.scoutpost.ai/faq
- FAQ text: https://www.scoutpost.ai/faq.txt
- Skills index: https://www.scoutpost.ai/skills
- Skills text index: https://www.scoutpost.ai/skills.txt
- Curated link index: https://www.scoutpost.ai/llms.txt
- Product-use skill: https://www.scoutpost.ai/skills/scoutpost.md
- Setup skill: https://www.scoutpost.ai/skills/scoutpost-setup.md

## Product-use skill

Use the product skill to operate scouts, units, and exports. It contains the
authoritative agent instructions and verification policy:

https://www.scoutpost.ai/skills/scoutpost.md

## Setup skill

Use the setup skill only to install, self-host, configure, or validate
Scoutpost. It covers hosted and self-hosted MCP/CLI setup, supported Supabase
deployment checks, and the manual-provider boundary:

https://www.scoutpost.ai/skills/scoutpost-setup.md

## Source and support

- GitHub: https://github.com/buriedsignals/scoutpost-os
- Releases: https://github.com/buriedsignals/scoutpost-os/releases
- Issues: https://github.com/buriedsignals/scoutpost-os/issues