synthesize

name: synthesize description: Read analysis outputs, compare against literature, and draft findings for a project REPORT.md. Use when notebooks have been run and the user wants to interpret results and write up findings. allowed-tools: Bash, Read, Write, Edit, WebSearch, AskUserQuestion user-invocable: true

Synthesis Skill

After notebooks have been run, read the outputs, compare against literature, and draft the findings/interpretation sections in the project's REPORT.md. Also update ## Status in README.md to reflect completion.

Usage

/synthesize <project_id>

If no <project_id> argument is provided, detect from the current working directory (if inside projects/{id}/).

Workflow (Two-Pass Approach)

Pass 1: Read Data and Draft Findings

Step 0: Precondition check

Read projects/{project_id}/beril.yaml and validate status. If beril.yaml is missing (pre-manifest project), skip this check and rely on the file-existence checks below.

• status: exploration — stop. Tell the user:

  "This project is still in exploration — there's no RESEARCH_PLAN.md to synthesize against yet. Write the plan first (use /berdl_start to resume the workflow), then re-run /synthesize."

• status: proposed — stop. Tell the user:

  "This project has a research plan but no analysis yet. Run the analysis notebooks first (Phase C of the workflow) so /synthesize has results to interpret. Resume via /berdl_start."

• status: active — proceed; this is the normal forward path (active → analysis).
• status: analysis — proceed (re-synthesis on a project still pre-review; no status change).
• status: reviewed — silent demote. Existing REVIEW_N.md files were against the previous REPORT.md and will go stale via hash mismatch. No prompt; just inform the user in the agent's reply: "Demoted to analysis; existing reviews are now stale. Run /berdl-review again before submitting." Then proceed.
• status: complete — explicit confirmation prompt before proceeding:

  "This project is currently complete (approved {approval.at} by {approval.by}). Running /synthesize will overwrite REPORT.md and demote the project to analysis. The previous approval will be archived under previous_approvals. Continue? (y/n)"

  • Yes: move the current approval block in beril.yaml to previous_approvals: [] (append) with an added archived_at: "<now>" field, set status: analysis, delete projects/{project_id}/REVIEW.md (the canonical copy of the now-archived review), and delete both SUBMITTED.md and SUBMISSION_FAILED.md if present (audit lives in beril.yaml.previous_approvals and beril.yaml.submissions[]). The README Status update happens in Step 7 below as part of the normal /synthesize flow. Then proceed.
  • No: abort with no changes.

Synthesizing without analysis outputs (the exploration and proposed cases) produces empty or fabricated findings, which is exactly what the new lifecycle is designed to prevent. The reviewed/complete demotes are how the iteration loop and reopen-and-resubmit flow stay honest.

Step 1: Gather Project Context

Read these project files:

1. projects/{project_id}/RESEARCH_PLAN.md — the hypothesis, expected outcomes, analysis plan (or research_plan.md for legacy projects)
2. projects/{project_id}/README.md — current state of the project (preserve Research Question, Authors)
3. projects/{project_id}/references.md — existing literature references

If RESEARCH_PLAN.md doesn't exist, check for research_plan.md (legacy). If neither exists, read the README for research question and hypothesis context.

Step 2: Read Analysis Outputs

Scan the project for results:

1. CSV files in projects/{project_id}/data/:

   • Read each CSV and interpret: column names, row counts, distributions, key statistics
   • Identify the main result variables (correlations, counts, p-values, effect sizes)

2. Figures in projects/{project_id}/figures/:

   • List available figures and their filenames (infer content from names)

3. Notebook outputs in projects/{project_id}/notebooks/:

   • If executed .ipynb files are present, read output cells for results
   • Look for printed summaries, DataFrames, and statistical test outputs

Step 3: Draft Initial Findings

Based on the data, draft findings that address:

1. Key results: What did the data show? (specific numbers, correlations, counts)
2. Hypothesis outcome: Was H1 supported or H0 not rejected?
3. Statistical significance: Report p-values, effect sizes, confidence intervals if available
4. Unexpected patterns: Note any surprising results or anomalies

Step 4: Present Draft to User

Show the initial findings interpretation and ask:

• "Does this interpretation look correct?"
• "Are there results I missed or misinterpreted?"
• "Any additional context to include?"

Wait for user feedback and revise if needed.

Pass 2: Literature Cross-Reference and Synthesis

Step 5: Search Literature for Context

Invoke /literature-review to search for papers that:

• Tested similar hypotheses in related organisms
• Used comparable methods or data
• Reported results that align or conflict with the BERDL findings

Focus searches on:

• The specific organisms/taxa analyzed in the project
• The specific biological question (e.g., "pangenome openness environmental adaptation")
• Key methods used (e.g., "partial correlation phylogenetic signal")

Step 6: Compare Findings Against Literature

For each key finding, assess:

Step 7: Produce Synthesis

Create or update projects/{project_id}/REPORT.md with the following sections:

# Report: {Title}

## Key Findings

### {Finding 1 Title}

![Description of figure](figures/relevant_figure.png)

{Statistical result with specific numbers}

*(Notebook: {notebook_name}.ipynb)*

### {Finding 2 Title} (if applicable)

{Statistical result}

*(Notebook: {notebook_name}.ipynb)*

## Discoveries

(Optional section — include only if the analysis surfaced non-trivial findings worth elevating across projects. Skip the section entirely if there's nothing material to capture; an absent section is the natural representation of "no claims of this kind." Each entry is a self-contained insight a reader from another project could learn from.)

- {One-line discovery 1, e.g., "Pangenome openness correlates with environmental breadth in soil-associated genera (rho=0.38, p<0.01)."}
- {One-line discovery 2 (if applicable)}

## Performance Notes

(Optional section — include only if this project hit non-obvious query timings, optimizations, or anti-patterns that future projects on similar data should know. Skip the section entirely if there's nothing material to capture.)

- {One-line performance observation, e.g., "Joining `species_pangenome_genes` to `species_function_genes` via `species_id` is 3x faster than via `cluster_id` for queries spanning >100 species."}

## Results
{Detailed results with embedded figures and markdown tables}

## Interpretation
{What the results mean biologically}

### Literature Context
- {Finding} aligns with Author et al. (Year) who found {similar result} in {organism}
- {Finding} contradicts Author et al. (Year) — possible explanation: {methodology difference}

### Novel Contribution
{What BERDL data adds that wasn't known before}

### Limitations
- {Data coverage limitations}
- {Potential confounders}
- {Methodological caveats}

## Data

### Sources
| Collection | Tables Used | Purpose |
|------------|-------------|---------|
| `{collection_id}` | `{table1}`, `{table2}` | {what this data provides} |

### Generated Data
| File | Rows | Description |
|------|------|-------------|
| `data/{filename}.csv` | {row_count} | {what the data contains} |

## Supporting Evidence

### Notebooks
| Notebook | Purpose |
|----------|---------|
| `{filename}.ipynb` | {what the notebook does} |

### Figures
| Figure | Description |
|--------|-------------|
| `{filename}.png` | {what the figure shows} |

## Future Directions
1. {Suggested next step based on findings}
2. {Follow-up analysis addressing limitations}
3. {New questions raised by the results}

## References
- Author et al. (Year). "Title." *Journal*. PMID: {pmid}

Important guidelines for the template:

• Inline figures: Place ![description](figures/filename.png) near the finding each figure supports. The UI rewrites these paths automatically for web rendering. Every figure in the project's figures/ directory should appear inline at least once.
• Notebook provenance: End each finding subsection with *(Notebook: filename.ipynb)* to trace results back to the analysis code.
• Data section: The ## Data section documents data lineage. ### Sources lists BERDL collections and tables queried. ### Generated Data lists output files with row counts.
• Collection IDs: Use the exact BERDL collection identifier (e.g., kescience_fitnessbrowser, kbase_ke_pangenome) in the Sources table. These IDs link to the collection detail pages on the Research Observatory, which include citation and attribution information for data providers.
• README update: Ensure the collection IDs appear somewhere in the README.md text so the UI can auto-detect and display Data Collections links on the project page.
• References: Always include references, even for well-known data sources. At minimum cite the primary data sources (e.g., Price et al. 2018 for Fitness Browser, Arkin et al. 2018 for KBase).
• Discoveries / Performance Notes sections: optional. Populate when there's something material to capture. Do not write to per-project memory files directly — these sections flow through /berdl-review (the reviewer evaluates them as part of the report), then /submit extracts the approved-and-reviewed content into projects/{project_id}/memories/{discoveries,performance}.md at approval time. Writing memories at synthesize time would propagate unvetted claims; the approval-gated path keeps OV-ingestible memories tied to content that survived review. If a section has no entries, omit it from REPORT.md entirely (don't write an empty ## Discoveries heading); /submit treats absent + empty identically and won't write a memory file.

Also update projects/{project_id}/README.md:

• After Step 0, status is always either active (forward path) or analysis (re-synthesis path, possibly after a reviewed/complete demote). In both cases, set ## Status to "Analysis — report drafted, awaiting /berdl-review and /submit." This is honest about the project's state: any prior approval was archived in Step 0, and any prior reviews are stale via hash mismatch.
• Preserve existing ## Research Question and ## Authors sections.

Step 7b: Update Manifest

Update projects/{project_id}/beril.yaml (skip silently if the file is missing — pre-manifest project):

• status: set to analysis. (Step 0 already handled the demote cases for reviewed/complete and rejected exploration/proposed, so the only statuses that reach Step 7b are active — flipping forward — and analysis — already there, idempotent.)
• artifacts.report: true
• last_session_at: current ISO 8601 timestamp

This makes /synthesize self-contained: when invoked directly (outside the /berdl_start orchestration), the manifest reflects the correct state without bypassing the plan-review checkpoint or the proposed → active transition that Phase C owns.

Step 8: Update References

Add any new papers found during synthesis to projects/{project_id}/references.md.

If the file doesn't exist, create it following the format from /literature-review.

Step 9: Trigger Pitfall Capture (if needed)

If unexpected data patterns were found during interpretation (missing data, anomalous distributions, coverage gaps), follow the pitfall-capture protocol.

Step 10: Suggest Next Steps

After completing the synthesis, tell the user:

"Findings drafted in projects/{project_id}/REPORT.md. Next steps:

1. Review the Key Findings and Interpretation sections.
2. Run /berdl-review to produce a numbered review of the current report (REVIEW_N.md). Iterate as much as you want — each review embeds the report's hash so /submit knows which one is current.
3. When you're ready to stand behind the project, run /submit to approve and archive it to the lakehouse."

Integration

• Reads from: data/*.csv, figures/, notebooks/*.ipynb, RESEARCH_PLAN.md, references.md
• Calls: /literature-review (for literature comparison)
• Produces: REPORT.md (Key Findings, Results, Interpretation, Supporting Evidence, Future Directions, References); updated README.md (Status)
• Consumed by: /submit (reviewer assesses the findings in REPORT.md)

Pitfall Detection

When you encounter errors, unexpected results, retry cycles, performance issues, or data surprises during this task, follow the pitfall-capture protocol. Read .claude/skills/pitfall-capture/SKILL.md and follow its instructions to determine whether the issue should be added to the active project's projects/<id>/memories/pitfalls.md.