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Recommendation Brief

Makes the call — and keeps how firm that call is on the page.

It is the only brief type that recommends. Every recommendation carries its status: supported outright, conditional on something stated, or not justified by the evidence yet. This one is conditional — the app marks it CONDITIONAL — and its gap stays visible.

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Recommendation Brief

Issue tracker for a six-person product team

Decision question

Which issue tracker should our six-person product team move to this quarter?

Recommendation

SOURCEFRAME SYNTHESISCONDITIONAL

Choose Linear this quarter if setup speed stays a higher priority than reporting depth source 1 source 3.

Factors considered

  • Evidence gap:Setup effort for a small teamEvidence for Shortcut is limited.
  • Reporting depth
  • Evidence gap:Cost at the team’s seat countNo source evidence for Shortcut.
Answers
“What should we do — and how firmly does the evidence back it?”
Appears when
You choose Recommendation, ask for a decision between options you name in Auto, or turn a comparison or summary brief into one.
Never does
Hides how firm the call is, or invents a pick to avoid an empty answer. It can state that the evidence doesn’t justify choosing.

Recommendation status

The call always arrives with its confidence attached

Status is part of the artifact, not a caveat someone remembered to add. All three are finished outputs.

  • Confident

    The evidence supports a clear recommendation.

    The factors that decide it are covered by the sources. Gaps can remain on factors that didn’t decide the call.

  • Conditional

    The call depends on a stated priority, assumption or incomplete evidence.

    The condition is written into the recommendation, so a reader who weighs things differently can see where the call would change.

  • Insufficient evidence

    The current evidence doesn’t justify choosing an option.

    A completed brief, not a failed one. It recommends nothing, and its gaps and next steps say what would have to be found first.

In the brief, the qualifier reads

  • Confident
    SOURCEFRAME SYNTHESIS
  • Conditional
    SOURCEFRAME SYNTHESISCONDITIONAL
  • Insufficient evidence
    SOURCEFRAME SYNTHESISMAJOR GAP

A confident call has no qualifier line. CONDITIONAL and MAJOR GAP sit beside SOURCEFRAME SYNTHESIS, above the recommendation itself.

Both outcomes are real briefs

The same decision question, on two different evidence sets

When the evidence supports a call

SOURCEFRAME SYNTHESISCONDITIONAL

Choose Linear this quarter if setup speed stays a higher priority than reporting depth source 1 source 3.

Recommended optionLinear

The deciding factor is the best-covered one, and the unresolved cost factor decided nothing. The condition is part of the recommendation.

Or

When it doesn’t

SOURCEFRAME SYNTHESISMAJOR GAP

The evidence does not support choosing between Linear and Shortcut yet source 4.

Recommended optionnone

What would have to be found

  • Pricing for either option at the team’s actual seat count.
  • One independent account of Shortcut at this team size.

No greyed-out winner and no least-bad pick. The brief is complete; the research isn’t.

A separate artifact, not an extra section

A Comparison Brief stops where this one starts

Recommendation Brief · this page

makes the call

Decision question · Recommendation

The call, under the qualifier that says how firm it is

Why this recommendation

The reasoning the call rests on, cited

Factors considered

The criteria behind it, as a list — each marked where the evidence is thin

The decision, its status and its reasoning are fields a Comparison Brief doesn’t have.

Versus

Comparison Brief

no overall call

How they compare

Criteria × options, with a takeaway per criterion

Tradeoffs · Open questions

Where the options pull apart, and what isn’t settled

Then

Turn into… builds a Recommendation Brief from it

A comparison ends without a verdict by design. The call is a separate brief you choose to create.

Comparison Brief

Inside the brief

A conditional recommendation, in full

Illustrative example — not a recorded run
Recommendation BriefV1 · Primary · 7 sources

Issue tracker for a six-person product team

Overview

For a six-person team leaving Jira, Linear is the call — conditionally, because the factor it loses is one the sources treat as optional at this size source 1 source 2.

  • Setup effort decides the call, and it is the best-covered factor source 1 source 3
  • Cost at the team’s seat count is unresolved and decided nothing source 2 source 5

Decision question

Which issue tracker should our six-person product team move to this quarter?

Recommendation

SOURCEFRAME SYNTHESISCONDITIONAL

Choose Linear this quarter if setup speed stays a higher priority than reporting depth source 1 source 3.

Why this recommendation

The deciding factor is the best covered

Setup effort is the team’s stated constraint, and it is the best-covered factor, where one option clearly leads on direct evidence source 1 source 3.

The factor against it is optional at this size

Jira leads on reporting depth, but the sources describe that depth as a need of larger organisations rather than six-person teams source 2 source 6. That is what makes the call conditional rather than confident.

Migration effort doesn’t separate the options

Both destinations import the same things and leave the same manual work source 3 source 4.

Factors considered

  • Evidence gap:Setup effort for a small teamEvidence for Shortcut is limited.
  • Reporting depth
  • Evidence gap:Cost at the team’s seat countNo source evidence for Shortcut.
  • Migration effort from Jira

Options compared

  • Linear

    Low-configuration tracker for small teams; strongest on setup, deliberately light on reporting source 1 source 3.

  • Jira

    The configurable incumbent, with the deepest reporting at a setup cost this team wants to leave source 2 source 6.

  • Shortcut

    Middle ground on configuration, covered by one source and no pricing source 4.

Evidence gaps & caveats

3 OPEN
  • No source prices any option at the team’s seat count.
  • Shortcut is covered by a single source.
  • Two of seven sources are vendor-published and marked single-perspective.

Suggested next steps

  1. Confirm with the team that reporting depth is genuinely optional — the condition rests on it.
  2. Add pricing sources before the seat count grows.

Sources rail

  • source 1

    Linear documentation

    Perspective · single perspective
  • source 2

    Independent tracker review

    Perspective · balanced
  • source 3

    Migration write-up

    Evidence · example-based

The reasoning cites sources, and every citation opens the evidence behind it — so a reader can check the call rather than take it on trust.

Source quality7 processed

Section order is fixed

  1. Overview
  2. Decision question
  3. Recommendation
  4. Why this recommendation
  5. Factors considered
  6. Options compared
  7. Evidence gaps & caveats
  8. Suggested next steps

The call comes straight after the question, and the reasoning follows it. Factors considered is a list, not a matrix.

Still here, after the call

Making the call doesn’t clear the gaps. CONDITIONAL stays on the recommendation, and Evidence gaps & caveats still names what no source covers — which is also what could change the call.

How you get one

Ask for the decision, or turn a brief you have into one

Directly · Web app

“Which issue tracker should our six-person team move to: Linear, Jira or Shortcut?”

Find sources & createMode · Recommendation

The link fills in the prompt only — choose Recommendation in the composer before you create. A free brief without an account runs in Auto, which picks the brief type itself.

Route in
  1. Question
  2. Recommendation
  3. Recommendation Brief

Recommendation is a mode you choose, in the web app and the extension. In Auto, a decision between options you name lands here too — an open “best tools for X” question becomes a Research Brief first.

From a brief you already have

    1. Comparison Brief
    2. Turn into…
    3. Recommendation Brief
    1. Source Comparison Brief
    2. Turn into…
    3. Recommendation Brief
    1. Source Brief
    2. Turn into…
    3. Recommendation Brief
    1. Source Summary Brief
    2. Turn into…
    3. Recommendation Brief

A comparison isn’t a required stop: each of these turns into one directly, built from that stage’s PRIMARY variant. A Research Brief doesn’t — its next step is a Comparison Brief.

What you can do next

Two ways to change a recommendation — and they do different things

From this brief
  1. Recommendation Brief
each move below starts here

  • Add sources · changes the evidence

    1. Add sources
    2. Updated brief ready
    3. variant 2

    Captured tabs or automatic discovery, from the latest brief in the workflow. A different source set can change the call, so the result is a new variant beside the original.

    Variant 2 of 2Viewing

    Your previous brief is kept and remains Primary. Make this Primary when the new call is the one you want.

  • Improve · reworks this brief · this type only

    1. Improve
    2. Refined draft
    3. version 2

    In the web app on desktop, on the live Recommendation Brief.

    Same evidence, better articulated. Improve can’t close an evidence gap — it only reworks what the sources already hold — and it gives you a refined draft rather than changing the brief.

    Strengthen recommendationMore cautious
    On the draftCompare changesDiscardSave as a new version

    The draft never replaces the brief on its own: compare it, then save it as a new version, or discard it.

Variant
A different outcome, because the evidence changed. Variants sit side by side; you choose which is Primary.
Version
A revision inside one variant. Version history lets you view and restore earlier revisions.
Also available
Ask with Sources only, Create draft, and PDF or Word export.

From Recommendation Brief

  • Comes from

    Comparison Brief

    The commonest predecessor. Its criteria become Factors considered — and it deliberately stops short of the call.

  • Also comes from

    Source Brief

    When a question you already answered turns into a decision, no comparison is needed in between.

  • Too early if

    Research Brief

    You can’t name the options yet. Research first — its next step is a Comparison Brief, not this.

  • Use it for

    Turn research into a decision

    The job end to end, including what to do when the brief declines to commit.

Make the call, and show how firm it is.

A recommendation with its condition, its factors and its gaps attached — or an honest statement that the evidence isn’t there yet.

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