# Source Protection

> Take information on terms, record them so the whole newsroom honours them, and publish without identifying anybody.

- Skill: `tinyhumansai/source-protection` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add tinyhumansai/source-protection`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/tinyhumansai/source-protection/raw
- Safety review: pending (external: skill-scanner PASS, skillspector PASS)
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: tinyhumansai (https://skillmd.com/u/tinyhumansai)
- Updated: 2026-09-22
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/tinyhumansai/source-protection

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# Source Protection

The terms are a promise made by the newsroom, not by the reporter. A source
identified by an illustration or a translated detail is identified just as
thoroughly as one named in the text.

## When to use

- Anybody provides information on any condition.
- A story involves somebody who could face consequences for having spoken.

## Steps

1. **Agree the terms explicitly and in their words** — on the record, on
   background, off the record — and check they mean the same thing by them that
   you do. They frequently do not.
2. **Record them immediately** on `sources`, with the date and who agreed them.
   Terms that live in one reporter's memory are terms the newsroom will breach
   by accident.
3. **Name the interest.** What the source gains if the story runs. Everybody has
   one; not writing it down does not remove it.
4. **Corroborate independently.** A protected source's account is a lead until a
   second source or a document supports it.
5. **Audit for identifying detail** before publication — in the text, the
   illustration, the metadata, the social card and every translation. The detail
   that identifies somebody is rarely their name.
6. **Reassess reliability afterwards.** A source who turned out to be wrong must
   be recorded as such, by somebody other than the person they charmed.

## Output

A `sources` row carrying the terms, the interest and the reliability, and a
publication-ready story with an explicit note of what was removed to protect
them. Anything contested goes to the operator before it is published.