The signal vocabulary is shared between machine consumers (Claude composing reports under this skill) and human readers (tenants, neighbors, investors, professionals, journalists, civic groups, regulators). A signal that’s well-defined technically but unclear to the reader fails its job. This file makes the reader’s understanding explicit so the editorial layer of every report can ground its commentary in the right framing for the right audience.
The framework
Every signal serves one or more audience lenses. The lenses considered:
- Consumer / tenantsomeone who lives in or near the property. Their question is usually “what does this mean for me?” — rent, security of tenure, neighborhood change, safety.
- Homeowner / neighborsomeone whose own equity or daily life is affected by what happens on adjacent parcels. Their question is “how does this move my value, my view, my street?”
- Investor / developersomeone deciding whether to buy, build, finance, or pass on a property. Their question is “what opportunity or risk is here?”
- Professionalarchitects, engineers, brokers, lenders, attorneys, contractors who interact with properties as part of their work. Their question is “what facts shape the decisions in front of me?”
- Journalist / researchersomeone investigating market patterns, ownership networks, or accountability. Their question is “what story is here that public records can substantiate?”
- Civic / societalhousing advocates, planners, regulators, policy researchers. Their question is “what does this pattern, at scale, tell us about how the city actually works?”
Not every signal speaks to every lens. The translations below name the lenses that genuinely apply.
Ethical guardrails
Signals are observations grounded in public records. They describe patterns, not motives. The audience-lens framings below are informational — they describe what someone could infer or do — not endorsements of any particular action. Specifically:
The signals do not accuse. A buyer who fits
foreclosure_buyer is doing legal work that’s
part of the post-foreclosure inventory clearing process; the
signal documents the pattern, not a wrongdoing. A landlord who
fits blitz_acquirer is exercising legal property
rights; the signal makes the pattern visible so tenants and
communities can respond on equal footing.
The signals do not target individuals. The privacy gates in the catalog ensure that residential individuals are never the subject of a signal. Commercial actors, professional licensees, and corporate entities are.
The signals are not investment advice. A property fitting
underbuilt_far is not necessarily a buy; a borrower
with mortgage_maturing_24m is not necessarily
distressed. These are starting points for inquiry, not conclusions.