Primary source

The original, authoritative document behind a claim (the enacted law text, the official journal, the model card, the provider's documentation), as opposed to a secondary summary that reports on it. A regulator's speech, a press release, or a blog post describing a future rule is not itself a primary source of an obligation, however official it sounds; only the enacted, codified text is, so trace a regulatory claim past the announcement to the actual statute or rule before treating it as verified.

The actual legal text (an Official Journal publication, a statute), the actual regulator decision or published opinion, or the actual research artifact (a paper's methodology and data, reproducible code) that a claim ultimately describes, as opposed to any summary, translation, or commentary about it.

The original research paper, technical report, or direct account from the researchers themselves describing a claimed result, as distinct from a secondary summary such as a news article or press release, which may compress, simplify, or inflate the original finding.

An original lab or research output (a model release, a research announcement, a capability tracker) that reports what was actually released or measured before a layer of hype is added; the highest-signal tier of a source set.

The instrument itself, the statute's own text, the regulator's own notice or reply, the framework's own published document, the court's own judgment. The ultimate reference point any claim should trace back to.