synthesize

synthesize is a skill for Claude Code from robertbagge/claude-sagan-plugin. It costs 57 tokens per session (4,095 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A research-writing tool that combines information from an existing collection of research files around one question or theme. It can produce formats such as a briefing, recommendation, guide, comparison, primer, or timeline.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to turn a completed research collection into a focused synthesis for a specific reader or decision.
Why use it?
It helps you examine one cross-cutting question without rereading and manually joining every research topic.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: argument-hint in frontmatter. Also seen: names the AskUserQuestion tool.

Needs its repository: it reads a path above its own folder, which exists only inside the repository. The line is - [Brief](../brief.md) — research brief that drove this corpus.

Part of the sagan plugin — 3 skills shipped together

Good fit Use it to turn a completed research collection into a focused synthesis for a specific reader or decision.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install

Getting it into your agent

It runs from inside its repository, so the clone comes first — what it calls does not travel with the file alone.

Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/robertbagge/claude-sagan-plugin
agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/robertbagge/claude-sagan-plugin/synthesize

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install sagan, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 3 skills.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for synthesize

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/robertbagge/claude-sagan-plugin/synthesize/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/robertbagge/claude-sagan-plugin/synthesize)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/robertbagge/claude-sagan-plugin/synthesize"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/robertbagge/claude-sagan-plugin/synthesize/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for synthesize

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/robertbagge/claude-sagan-plugin/synthesize"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/robertbagge/claude-sagan-plugin/synthesize.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 57 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 4,095 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00057 $0.04095
Opus 5 $0.00028 $0.02048
Sonnet 5 $0.00011 $0.00819
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00409

Measured 9d ago against content hash 03e80f60628a, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-09, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

synthesize scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 9d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

skills/synthesize/SKILL.md · 254 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 254 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

synthesize

Cut an existing research corpus along one axis and write a synthesis in the shape the reader needs.

/deep-research produces breadth: one file per topic, plus synthesis/general.md covering the whole corpus. /synthesize produces depth on a seam that runs across those topics — what the corpus knows about one question, assembled into one document.

{output_dir}/
├── brief.md
├── research/                 # read by this skill, never written
│   └── {topic-slug}.md
└── synthesis/
    ├── general.md            # owned by /deep-research — never write this
    └── {axis-slug}.md        # written by this skill

Why this matters

Two properties make a synthesis trustworthy, and both are easy to lose:

  • Citations survive the trip. Material passes through an extraction agent before it reaches the synthesis. If that agent paraphrases a claim and drops its [T2] tag, the synthesis inherits an unsourced assertion that reads as sourced. Extraction is a copying job, not a writing job.
  • Nothing is silently skipped. Every topic file gets an agent, even ones that look unrelated from their one-line summary. A seam that runs across a corpus surfaces in files nobody would have triaged into scope.

This skill is corpus-only. It never runs web searches and never introduces material that isn't already in research/. When the axis needs something the corpus lacks, that goes in the Coverage gaps section — which is the input to the next /deep-research round, not something to paper over.

Modes

The mode determines the document's skeleton. Six in the catalog:

Mode For a reader who wants Skeleton
Briefing What the corpus knows about the axis, densely, as a peer Sub-axes of the topic, 3–6 H2s
Recommendation A call, with the reasoning exposed Options → Recommendation → Rationale → Risks → What would change this
Implementation guide To build the thing, decision already made Prerequisites → Sequenced steps → Pitfalls → Checkpoints
Comparison To weigh contenders against criteria Criteria → Per-option assessment → Trade-offs
Primer To learn the axis from zero Layered: foundations → mechanics → current state, terms defined on first use
Timeline How the axis got here Chronological phases, each with what changed and what forced it

Read the full file on GitHub · 254 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 9d ago First seen · 254 lines · 57 tokens per session scan A 03e80f60628a

Subscribe to this mod's changes

synthesize is a skill published in the GitHub repository robertbagge/claude-sagan-plugin (4 stars, last pushed 23d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 57 tokens to every session and 4,095 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

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