Guardrails, Not Gatekeepers
June 25, 2026 · by Michael Morrison
The CDB's validation pipeline replaces human editorial judgment with mechanical constraints. Every rule in the validator represents a quality question answered permanently in code.
Citizen's Daily Brief
A daily intelligence-style assessment modeled on the President's Daily Brief, adapted for the public.
Web
iOS · Soon
A structured daily assessment of significant world events, designed for citizens who want to understand the world without the noise.
What it does
- Daily briefings — a concise, structured summary of the most significant world events, published every day
- Intelligence-style format — modeled on the structure of the President’s Daily Brief, adapted for a public audience
- Trust signals — every claim is sourced, reasoning is shown, and confidence levels are stated rather than implied
- Transparent methodology — how stories are selected, weighted, and assessed is part of the product, not hidden behind it
Why it exists
Most news is optimized for engagement. The Citizen’s Daily Brief is optimized for understanding — fewer stories covered better, with the context and sourcing to actually trust what you’re reading.
From the lab
View all →Deliberately Boring by Design
June 23, 2026 · by Michael Morrison
In a portfolio full of playful apps, we intentionally made something that feels like a government report. Here's why rejecting every modern app design pattern was the most interesting decision we made.
Three Products, One Pipeline
June 16, 2026 · by Michael Morrison
How the same infrastructure produces three different analytical artifacts — the daily brief, the weekly assessment, and FICINT dossiers — and why one shared pipeline makes the difference in cadence and production model possible without doubling the engineering.
Thirty-Four Feeds and a Philosophy
May 25, 2026 · by Michael Morrison
The CDB's source strategy is deliberately diverse across the political spectrum, carefully structured around editorial perspectives, and fully disclosed. Every editorial choice in the source list is a statement about what kind of information product this is.
Building an Automated Analyst
May 12, 2026 · by Michael Morrison
How a five-stage pipeline turns RSS feeds into structured intelligence assessments, and why the distinction between summary and assessment shaped every technical decision.
Who Briefs the Public?
May 3, 2026 · by Michael Morrison
The President's Daily Brief exists because one person needs assessed information to make consequential decisions. The premise of the Citizen's Daily Brief is that all of us are now in that position.