free-manual — a free guide to the repeatable 5-phase method for AI-assisted OSINT investigations

Most people use AI for OSINT backwards. They open a chat model, type “find everything on this email,” and trust whatever fluent, confident answer comes back — no sources, no verification, a worrying amount of it invented.

The problem isn’t the model. It’s the missing process.

• Junior OSINT analysts who want a repeatable investigation method
• Pentesters and bug bounty hunters doing recon with AI tooling
• Investigators running AI-assisted due diligence on people, companies, or IPs
• Anyone who has tried using ChatGPT or Claude for recon and got garbage output

Works with Claude, ChatGPT, or any AI assistant. Supercharged when paired with OpenOSINT — open-source OSINT framework with 16 tools and an MCP server.

• The five-phase method — scope → collect → pivot → verify → document, the whole investigation loop on one page.
• The confidence & sourcing rubric — rate every finding (confirmed / probable / possible / assumption) so nothing reaches your report unsourced.
• A complete Email investigation playbook — objective, ready-to-paste prompt, the OpenOSINT tools to call, the pivots, and a verification checklist.
• Two core prompts + a reusable skeleton — phase-locked, confidence-forcing, source-demanding, anti-fabrication. Paste into Claude, ChatGPT, or OpenOSINT.

One of the two core prompts, verbatim — the scoping phase, straight from the PDF:

You are an OSINT analyst in the SCOPING phase. Do not collect
or guess any data yet.

Engagement: [one line on what you are authorized to investigate]
Objective:  [the specific question you need answered]

Output:
1. The objective restated in one sentence.
2. In-scope vs out-of-scope (sources, identifiers, targets).
3. The 3-6 concrete questions that, if answered, satisfy it.
4. The public source types relevant to each question.
5. Legal/ethical flags I should confirm before proceeding.
Ask me anything ambiguous instead of assuming.

Enter $0 on Gumroad. No card, no account required. The PDF downloads immediately.

From the maker of OpenOSINT, an open-source OSINT framework used by security researchers and analysts worldwide. No spam — unsubscribe anytime.