---
name: brainlift-writer
description: "Guide for drafting, revising, and evaluating BrainLifts: AI-ready knowledge documents that move from purpose and scope to experts, DOK 2 knowledge trees, DOK 3 insights, and DOK 4 spiky points of view. Use when asked to create a BrainLift, improve BrainLift writing style, transform notes or research into structured AI context, or audit whether a BrainLift has clear scope, evidence, synthesis, and original POVs."
---

# BrainLift Writer

## Overview

Create BrainLifts as portable context documents for any AI model. Treat a BrainLift as a structured record of human thinking: raw knowledge becomes summaries, summaries become insights, and insights become strong, defensible points of view.

Read `references/brainlift-template.md` when drafting a full BrainLift from scratch, converting a large note dump, or auditing section-level completeness.

## Core Workflow

1. Establish the purpose.
   - Write one concise North Star that names the central question, mission, or belief.
   - Add `In Scope` and `Out of Scope` boundaries to prevent drift.
   - Keep the BrainLift focused on what the author wants to understand, decide, teach, or repeatedly hand to AI.

2. Build the foundation before forcing conclusions.
   - Extract DOK 1 facts from sources as objective claims.
   - Summarize those facts into DOK 2 knowledge using the author's own words.
   - Group knowledge into a hierarchy of categories, subcategories, and sources.

3. Synthesize DOK 3 insights.
   - Turn organized knowledge into original conclusions, patterns, tensions, or connections.
   - Make each insight a complete thought, not a source summary.
   - Group insights thematically so they can support higher-level arguments.

4. Form DOK 4 spiky points of view.
   - State each SPOV as a strong, clear assertion.
   - Defend it by combining multiple DOK 3 insights, especially from different sources or domains.
   - Explain implications, tradeoffs, and why the stance is not a generic AI-generated take.

5. Add experts.
   - Include the people, labs, companies, books, papers, or communities the author should keep following.
   - For each expert, capture who they are, what they focus on, why they matter to this BrainLift, and where to find their work.

6. Assemble in BrainLift order.
   - `Owners`
   - `Purpose`
   - `In Scope`
   - `Out of Scope`
   - `DOK 4: Spiky Points of View`
   - `Experts`
   - `DOK 3: Insights`
   - `DOK 2: Knowledge Tree`

## Writing Style

- Write for reuse in future AI conversations. Favor clear structure, explicit labels, and claims that can be copied into another model without extra explanation.
- Preserve the author's thinking. Do not let the AI invent expertise, overstate certainty, or replace the author's own synthesis.
- Separate facts, summaries, insights, and POVs. Do not blur raw evidence with interpretation.
- Prefer strong verbs and direct claims. Avoid vague phrases like "it is important to consider" unless the next sentence says exactly why.
- Make scope boundaries crisp. A BrainLift becomes weaker when it tries to be a general encyclopedia.
- Keep examples concrete. Name sources, mechanisms, constraints, and implications.
- Mark gaps honestly. Use `Open Questions` or `Needs Evidence` notes when the source material is thin.

## Quality Bar

A strong BrainLift should:

- Have a purpose specific enough to reject irrelevant material.
- Make the knowledge tree easy to scan from broad category to source-level evidence.
- Show how DOK 3 insights came from the DOK 2 knowledge base.
- Make DOK 4 SPOVs debatable, actionable, and defensible.
- Help a fresh AI model understand the author's mental model quickly.

Reject or revise BrainLift drafts that:

- Contain only summaries with no original synthesis.
- Present generic claims that any model could generate without the author's research.
- Hide uncertainty or omit links back to source material.
- Confuse "more content" with "better context."
- Use AI to bypass the author's own thinking process.

## Common Tasks

### Draft From Notes

Read the notes, identify the central purpose, sort source material into DOK 2, then draft provisional DOK 3 insights and DOK 4 SPOVs. Label uncertain claims as provisional instead of pretending the synthesis is complete.

### Improve An Existing BrainLift

Check section order, scope clarity, evidence linkage, insight quality, and SPOV strength. Revise weak sections directly when possible. When evidence is missing, add a short `Needs Evidence` marker rather than fabricating support.

### Audit A BrainLift

Return findings in priority order:

- Missing or muddy purpose
- Scope creep
- Weak or unsupported SPOVs
- Insights that are actually summaries
- Knowledge tree gaps
- Missing experts or source links

Then provide the smallest useful set of edits or next steps.