Briefs
The one document that tells ScoutFox what you care about.
A brief is the root of everything ScoutFox does for you. It's the one place you describe:
- Name — a label for the brief. Today every user has one brief; multi-brief is on the roadmap.
- What you care about — your focus areas, in your own words.
- Why it matters — your context (the thesis, the angle, the goal).
- Who you race — competitors whose moves you care about.
- How to reach you — delivery channels, frequency, do-not-disturb.
Every interest, every run, every delivery decision reads from the brief.
Why one brief
Older systems make you configure every alert separately. That works for two alerts and falls apart at twenty. The brief flips it: configure the person (or fund / desk / brand) once; every interest inherits the context.
It also means edits propagate. Refine your thesis paragraph in one place and the next run scores every finding against the new text. No per-alert rebuild.
What's in a brief
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Name | The label for this brief. |
| Focus areas / sectors / beats | Free-form list. Each becomes an interest. |
| Tags (optional) | Free-form labels on interests. See Tags. |
| Context paragraph | Your thesis / angle / positioning. Every dispatch scored against it. |
| Competitors / rivals | Funds, outlets, brands you don't want to lose to. Flagged on dispatches. |
| Delivery preferences | Channels, frequency, quiet hours. See Delivery. |
| Voice profile (optional) | Vocabulary, jargon to avoid, audience. Used by the synthesis layer. |
The context paragraph is the highest-leverage edit you can make. A vague brief produces a vague Wire. A sharp, specific one — "India seed-stage robotics, hardware-strong technical founders, avoid pure-software plays" — produces a sharp Wire.
Editing the brief
All brief edits happen either in Profile → Brief or via
cmd+k slash commands — /profile,
/pause anduril hiring, /new, /tag defense. There is no separate
"interests page" to manage; the brief is the configuration surface.
When a brief mutates itself
If you opt in to auto-pilot, your brief's interests can refine themselves between runs — merging redundant interests, tightening exclusions, retuning freshness windows. Every change is journaled with a 7-day rollback. Off by default.