Source Map

---
name: source-map
description: Curate the authoritative sources for a topic before research begins. Surveys adjacent material to discover voices rather than asking the LLM directly who's authoritative — STORM's finding is that direct question-asking does not work well for source discovery. Produces `<topic-slug>-sources.md` grouping candidates by primacy (`primary` / `secondary` / `tertiary`). When invoked downstream of `/identify-perspectives`, groups sources by camp; in standalone invocations, skips the camp-grouping step. Depth cues — `quickly`, `top three`, `briefly`, `summary only` for narrow surveys; `comprehensively`, `exhaustively`, `in depth`, `extensive` for thorough ones.
metadata:
  boundaries: [network_fetch]
---

# /source-map

Discovers and curates the sources a research artifact will eventually
cite. Runs upstream of `/desk-research` standard / deep mode and upstream of
the decision pipeline; can also run standalone before any synthesis.

## Output rendering

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Lead with the useful outcome or next action. Use warm, non-blaming language and everyday words. Define an unfamiliar term in a few plain words before naming it; keep proper names and exact technical terms intact.
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Shape the answer to the facts: one fact needs one sentence; related facts use prose; separate items use bullets; real sequences use numbered steps.
For prose artifacts, use descriptive headings, short resumable sections, one fact per sentence, and no repeated summary. Emphasize at most one load-bearing point per section. Group long inventories instead of truncating them.
Make the result stand alone. Do needed arithmetic, give real dates or times, and say what a file or link establishes instead of making the reader inspect it.
For code and comments, prefer obvious structure and names. Comment on intent, constraints, or trade-offs that the code cannot state clearly.
Use a table, tree, flow, or other visual only when it makes a relationship materially easier to understand.
Report the current state, not the path taken. Omit dead ends, resolved trade-offs, hedges, and advice the user did not request.
When editing maintained prose, consolidate repeated rules and navigation before adding another caveat.
Silence and brevity never reduce the work, checks, or requested coverage. Preserve depth, evidence, constraints, warnings, code, diffs, errors, and exact names, paths, and counts.
Keep verification compact: pass or fail, count, and runtime. Name a suite when it failed or when the name changes what the reader should do.
Before sending, check that the reader can act without counting, converting, opening a file, or asking what a line means.
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Table — When presenting several items that share the same fields, render a Markdown table. Cap at ~5 columns; beyond that, switch to a per-item detail list. Right-align numeric columns.

## When to invoke

- Before standard or deep research on an unfamiliar topic.
- After `/identify-perspectives` in the decision pipeline — sources are
  grouped per camp.
- Standalone, to scope which authorities a topic actually has.

## Methodology

The core discovery move is **survey-by-adjacency**, not direct
question-asking. STORM's finding: asking the LLM "who's authoritative
on X" produces a generic, training-data-shaped list. Instead, survey
adjacent material — papers that cite each other, blog posts that cross-
reference, communities that share vocabulary — and let the authorities
fall out of the pattern.

Treat any "who is authoritative on X" intuition the LLM produces as
suspect. Discovery is empirical, not asserted.

## Source taxonomy

Every candidate gets three tags:

1. **Authority type** — `practitioner` / `researcher` / `vendor` /
   `journalist` / `community` / `regulator`.
2. **Recency** — `current` (≤2 years) / `recent` (2–5 years) /
   `historical` (>5 years, still cited).
3. **Primacy** — `primary` (original source — the paper, the spec, the
   regulator's text), `secondary` (analyses and syntheses of primary
   material), `tertiary` (summaries-of-summaries, textbooks,
   encyclopedias).

The primacy tag is the most load-bearing — `/desk-research` triangulation
requires ≥3 independent sources, and independence depends on primacy:
three tertiary sources citing the same primary source count as one.

## Procedure

1. **Survey adjacency** — issue WebSearch on the topic's key terms;
   skim the top-cited items; note who cites whom.
2. **Dispatch extraction** — on Claude Code, dispatch `source-extractor`
   subagent against the candidate list. Otherwise read each candidate
   inline.
3. **Classify** — tag each surviving source by authority + recency +
   primacy.
4. **Write `<topic-slug>-sources.md`** — group by primacy (primary first). In a
   decision-pipeline invocation, sub-group within primacy by camp (the
   upstream `<topic-slug>-perspectives.md` provides the camps). `<topic-slug>`
   is the kebab-case topic slug; the naming rule lives in the `/desk-research` skill
   body (§ Typed, topic-named artifacts).
5. **Cite the rule** — `/desk-research` will use `<topic-slug>-sources.md` to choose
   which sources to triangulate against.

## Upstream / standalone behavior

`/source-map` runs in two shapes:

- **Decision-pipeline invocation** — expects an upstream
  `<topic-slug>-perspectives.md`. Sources are grouped by primacy *and* by camp,
  so `/compare-hypotheses` downstream can pull camp-aligned sources per
  hypothesis.
- **Standalone invocation** — no upstream `<topic-slug>-perspectives.md` required.
  Sources grouped by primacy only; the camp-grouping step is skipped.

The skill is **not** invoked by `/decision-archaeology`, which is self-
contained. See that skill's body for why.

## `<topic-slug>-sources.md` output schema

```markdown
# Sources — <topic>

## Primary

- **<title>** ([url]) — <one-sentence summary>. Authority: <type>.
  Recency: <bucket>. [synthesis or citation note]

## Secondary

(same shape)

## Tertiary

(same shape)
```

In decision-pipeline mode, each primacy section is sub-grouped by camp
under `### Camp: <name>`.

## Citation discipline

Every entry in `<topic-slug>-sources.md` carries a citation (the URL or local path).
Notes about a source — its angle, its bias, its credibility — are
marked `[synthesis]` when they integrate across sources or `[inference]`
when they deduce from one.

## Depth cues

Adopters can include cue tokens in the prompt to adjust behavior:

- `quickly`, `top three`, `briefly`, `summary only` — narrow the survey;
  return the most-cited handful per primacy bucket only.
- `comprehensively`, `exhaustively`, `in depth`, `extensive` — widen
  the survey; chase secondary citations into their primary sources;
  include weaker authorities for completeness.