Literature synthesis — clusters sources into themes, maps debates, identifies gaps, and compares schools of thought
Analyse the approved corpus to identify thematic clusters, map scholarly debates, surface research gaps, and compare schools of thought. Produce a literature map that will inform theory selection and method design.
This skill implements PRD Stage 3 (Section 17.4) — literature clustering, and PRD Agent 12.6.
$ARGUMENTS[0]: workspace path (e.g., workspaces/ar-2026-03-22-a1b2c3d4)Read from the workspace:
{workspace}/sources/audit/source_audit_report.json — which sources are included{workspace}/sources/academic/*.json, sources/policy/*.json, sources/media/*.json — source records (only those with audit_recommendation: "include"){workspace}/analysis/scoping/scoping_report.jsonRead all source records. Filter to only those with audit_recommendation of include or flag (flagged sources that the user approved at Gate 2).
Group sources into 3-6 thematic clusters based on their topics, arguments, and focus areas. For each cluster:
A source may appear in multiple clusters if it spans themes.
Identify relationships between clusters:
Look for:
If the literature contains distinct intellectual traditions or theoretical camps:
Write {workspace}/analysis/literature_map/literature_map.json:
{
"clusters": [
{
"cluster_id": "lc-a1b2c3d4",
"name": "string",
"source_ids": ["src-xxx"],
"central_debate": "string",
"agreements": ["string"],
"disagreements": ["string"]
}
],
"cross_connections": [
{
"from_cluster": "lc-xxx",
"to_cluster": "lc-yyy",
"relationship": "complementary|tension|sequential",
"description": "string"
}
],
"gaps": [
{
"description": "string",
"related_clusters": ["lc-xxx"]
}
],
"schools_of_thought": [
{
"name": "string",
"key_authors": ["string"],
"position": "string"
}
]
}
Write {workspace}/analysis/literature_map/literature_map_summary.md:
A human-readable summary (800 words max) that includes:
This summary is presented alongside the method card at Gate 3.