# Literature Synthesis Agent

> A literature-synthesis agent that reviews your sources, cites every claim, weighs evidence strength, surfaces conflicts, and never fabricates findings or citations.

- **Category:** Research & Synthesis
- **Difficulty:** Advanced
- **Setup time:** 45 min
- **Stacks:** Claude, LangGraph, OpenAI
- **Version:** 2.0.0 (updated 2026-06-21)
- **Source:** https://agent-kits.com/kit/literature-synthesizer

## Overview

Synthesizes the sources you provide into a structured, cited review.

Cites every claim to a real source and weighs how strong the evidence is.

Surfaces where sources agree and, honestly, where they conflict.

Defensive: never fabricates findings or citations, marks gaps, and doesn't overgeneralize.

## When to use it

- You have a set of sources and want a structured, cited synthesis.
- You want evidence strength weighed and conflicts surfaced, not smoothed over.
- You need every claim traceable to a real source.
- You want gaps and limitations flagged honestly.

## When not to use it

- You want it to find or cite sources you didn't provide — it synthesizes what you give it.
- You expect a definitive answer where the evidence is genuinely mixed.
- You want medical, legal, or financial advice (it summarizes evidence, not advice).
- You can't provide the source material.

## Architecture

- **Source intake** — Takes the set of provided sources that are the only allowed basis for the synthesis.
- **Finding extractor** — Pulls findings from each source, tagging each with its citation.
- **Evidence-strength assessor** — Rates each finding's strength by study type, sample, recency, and peer review.
- **Consensus & conflict mapper** — Identifies where sources agree and where they genuinely conflict, with citations on both.
- **Citation guard** — Blocks any claim that isn't tied to a real provided source, preventing fabricated references.
- **Gap & limitation marker** — Marks what the sources don't establish and notes limitations rather than overgeneralizing.
- **Synthesis assembly** — Produces the structured, cited review with consensus, conflicts, gaps, and a not-advice caveat.

## Files in this bundle

- `system-prompt.md` — the agent's system prompt
- `tools.json` — tool/function definitions the agent expects
- `workflow.md` — step-by-step run loop
- `.env.example` — environment variables to fill in
- `kit.json` — full structured metadata
- `starters/` — minimal starter snippets
- `LICENSE` — Apache-2.0 (code, configuration, and schema)
- `LICENSE-CONTENT` — CC BY 4.0 (specification text and documentation)
- `NOTICE` — attribution and trademark notice
- `run.py` — **runnable demo**: real agent loop with mock tools (`pip install anthropic`, set `ANTHROPIC_API_KEY`, `python run.py`)
- `agentaz.json` / `agentaz.schema.json` — AgentAz™ governance spec + schema

## Implementation notes

- Citation honesty is the whole job: every claim must tie to a real provided source, and the agent must never invent an author, title, year, statistic, or quote — fabricated citations are the defining danger of AI literature work.
- Never assert a finding the sources don't contain; unsupported claims become gaps, not confident statements.
- Weigh evidence strength (study type, sample size, recency, peer review) instead of treating all sources equally.
- Surface conflicts honestly with citations on both sides rather than cherry-picking a clean conclusion from mixed evidence.
- Don't overgeneralize beyond the population or context the sources cover; note limitations explicitly.
- Keep it to synthesis, not advice — it summarizes what the evidence says, not what someone should do medically, legally, or financially.
- Keep the strong model on extraction and citation-guarding; verification against originals by a human remains essential.

## Variations

- **Basic — Cited synthesizer:** Synthesizes provided sources into a cited summary of findings. On demand.
- **Advanced — Weighted, conflict-aware review:** Adds evidence-strength weighting, consensus/conflict mapping, citation guards, and gap marking.
- **Enterprise — Research synthesis workflow:** Adds reference-manager integration, large source sets, structured review export, and traceability to originals for verification.

## FAQ

**Will it make up citations?**

Never — that's its defining constraint. It cites only the sources you provide and will not invent an author, title, year, statistic, or quote. If a claim isn't supported by your sources, it marks it as a gap instead of fabricating a reference.

**Does it find new sources for me?**

No. It synthesizes the sources you give it. It won't pull in or cite papers you didn't provide, which is exactly what keeps its citations trustworthy and verifiable.

**How does it handle disagreeing studies?**

It surfaces the conflict honestly, citing both sides and noting their evidence strength (for example, a small study versus a larger one), rather than cherry-picking one to produce a tidy but misleading conclusion.

**Does it weigh stronger evidence more?**

Yes. It notes study type, sample size, recency, and peer review, so a meta-analysis or large RCT isn't treated the same as a small single-site study.

**Can I trust the claims without checking?**

You should still verify against the originals — but because every claim carries a real citation to a provided source, verification is straightforward, and the agent flags gaps rather than papering over them.

**Does it give recommendations?**

No. It synthesizes what the evidence says; it doesn't give medical, legal, or financial advice or definitive real-world recommendations. Those decisions stay with you and the appropriate experts.


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© 2026 AgentKits · www.agent-kits.com

**Open source.** Code, configuration, and the AgentAz™ schema are licensed under
**Apache-2.0**; specification text and documentation under **CC BY 4.0** (with
attribution to AgentKits, link to https://www.agent-kits.com). See LICENSE, LICENSE-CONTENT,
and NOTICE in this bundle. "AgentAz" and "AgentKits" are trademarks of AgentKits.

**Flagship reference blueprint.** View the source, AgentAz™ spec, and frozen v1.0 schema
in the public registry: https://github.com/agent-kits/agentaz
Original: https://agent-kits.com/kit/literature-synthesizer
