Literature Synthesis

---
name: literature-synthesis
description: Synthesize multiple papers, reports, standards, and primary sources into a coherent evidence map that preserves differing definitions, methods, and results.
---
# Literature Synthesis

Use when this procedure is the primary professional method needed for the assignment.

## Procedure
1. Confirm the decision or outcome this work must support, its scope, owner, constraints, and definition of success.
2. Establish the evidence baseline using full-text or abstracts, methods, populations, measures, dates, and citation graph. Do not fill material gaps with assumptions when they can change the result.
3. Normalize terminology, group sources by question/method, extract comparable findings, explain disagreements, identify consensus versus uncertainty, and surface research gaps.
4. Exercise realistic edge, failure, transition, or exception cases that could invalidate the result; record unresolved uncertainty explicitly.
5. Validate the output against the original outcome and any neighboring professional contracts so this skill does not silently absorb another specialist's authority.
6. Record the resulting artifact, measurements, decisions, provenance, and handoff information needed for another owner to reproduce or continue the work.

## Quality gate
The synthesis does not manufacture consensus and every conclusion traces to the included evidence.