The record of what a place’s own people know and say needs doing, gathered by a BioHub cohort without AI and accepted by the place’s ratifying authorities before any other Place Mandate work begins.
Extended definition
The Brief is Step 0 of the Place Mandate Template. A BioHub cohort gathers it through listening sessions in each settlement and land-use group, in the speakers’ own words and languages. It asks what the place knows about its land and water, what has been lost, what needs doing over the next generation, what must never be traded, what has been tried, what the place already does for itself, who decides, and what date gives the place’s future its meaning.
The Brief closes with the place’s own list of things that need doing. Once the ratifying authorities accept it, that list is fixed input: the AI prompts that follow may organize, evidence, value and cost it, and may not add to it.
Contrast with adjacent instruments
A needs assessment is usually designed and analyzed by an outside party to inform its own program. The Brief is designed and held by the place, and every later document answers to it. Custodial knowledge is recorded only as existing and held by named custodians; its content and the location of sensitive sites stay out of the Brief.
Related terms
Sources
- Place Mandate Template (source document Place_Mandate_Template_v0_1.md)
Provenance
Written 30 September 2026 alongside the Place Mandate Template, which introduces the term. No editorial decisions beyond the standard voice conversions.