Chains

A chain is a map of who sells what to whom, from the raw input to the end customer, with the listed names at each step. The desk ships one as a starter; the rest are yours, drafted by your AI from a line or two and finished by you.

The shape of a chain

A chain has a title, the market its names are priced in, one line on what it is, and then:

• Layers, upstream to downstream. Each layer is one kind of company: what it sells, what it buys and from which layer, who it sells to and which layer. Read down the layers and backward integration and forward integration read off the map.
• Names under each layer. A listed company with its ticker, priced live, or a private one by name. Each carries a status you set (owned, watch, context, and the rest) and a receipt: DISCLOSED when a filing states it, ON RECORD when the company itself has said it, REPORTED when the press has. A note and a source sit under the name.
• Named links. Supplier to customer, what flows between them, with the same receipt grades.
• The frame and the hunt. A few lines on what drives the chain and where the money is made, and a few on what to look for next.

Drafting one with your AI

Press + New chain. At the top of the form, describe the chain in a line or two: the product, the industry or the company at its centre, and what you want mapped. A centre ticker is optional; when you give one, whatever your vault already holds on that name (your notes, the annual report you attached) goes to the AI with the description. Press Draft it.

Your AI returns a first fill: four to eight layers, the names it knows under each, links, a frame and a hunt. A draft through an app on this computer takes a minute or two; a key from a lab is faster. Every line lands in the form for you to keep, change or drop. Nothing is saved until you press Save.

The AI is told to use a ticker only when it is sure of it, to leave the ticker empty for a private company, to mark DISCLOSED only when a document you supplied states it and to name that document, and never to invent a figure. Read the draft the way you would read a junior's first pass: the shape is usually right, the receipts are yours to check.

Building by hand

The same form without the draft. Add a layer, name it, say what it sells and buys, add the names under it. Layers move up and down. Links go in a row each. Save.

The starter

The chain that ships is one example of the shape. Make it yours turns it into your copy to edit; Put this starter away hides it if it is not your market or your theme; Bring the starters back on the tab strip returns it.

Delete, and the way back

Delete keeps a copy and the strip at the bottom offers Undo for a moment. The copy stays under the vault's chains/.previous folder after that.

Names from anywhere

The ⋯ that appears on any name across the desk carries Put it on a chain: pick the chain and the layer, and the name lands there with its ticker and market.

Where chains live

In your research vault, under chains, one plain file per chain, beside your notes. They sync, back up and restore with the rest of the vault. An AI agent reading the desk sees the folder on the agent page and can write a chain when you ask it to.