Consumer Protocol — literature_corpus[] Reading

Status: Released in v3.6.5 (both Phase 1 consumers wired) Applies to: any agent in this repo that reads literature_corpus[] from a Material Passport Authoritative spec: docs/design/2026-04-26-ars-v3.6.5-consumer-integration-design.md

What this document covers

This is the contract every literature-reading consumer agent must follow. The v3.6.4 input port (shared/contracts/passport/literature_corpus_entry.schema.json) defines what enters a Material Passport; this document defines how Phase 1 agents read it.

The corpus-first, search-fills-gap flow has five steps; the four Iron Rules are non-negotiable; the PRE-SCREENED block is the reproducibility surface; failures are surfaced honestly via the [CORPUS PARSE FAILURE: <cause>] graceful fallback.

Reading flow (shared by every consumer)

Step 0: Detect literature_corpus[] presence and minimal shape
Step 1: Pre-screen corpus against current RQ
Step 2: Search-fills-gap — case A / B / B' / C
Step 3: Merge included + external_included for downstream
Step 4: Emit Search Strategy Report with PRE-SCREENED block

The full flow specification lives in spec §3.1. Each consumer agent's agent.md must include the full Step 0–4 description and all four Step 2 case markers (case A / case B / case B' / case C). The lint enforces presence (L6).

PRE-SCREENED block template

Every consumer emits the block in this exact shape (alphabetical ordering for citation_keys; truncate at 50 entries with appendix file). Spec §3.2 has the complete template plus truncation rules.

PRE-SCREENED FROM USER CORPUS:
- Adapter: <obtained_via enum value | "<unspecified>" | "mixed (...)">
                                          # e.g., zotero-bbt-export, or "<unspecified>" per F4a,
                                          # or "<value> (N of M entries declared)" per F4b,
                                          # or "mixed (zotero-bbt-export: K, ..., undeclared: U)" per F4c
- Snapshot date: <max(obtained_at)>        # ISO 8601, or "<unspecified>" per F4d,
                                          # or "<date> (M of N entries declared)" per F4e,
                                          # or append "(spans <N> days; corpus may not be a single snapshot)" per F4f
- Total entries scanned: <N>
- Pre-screening result:
  - Included: <K> entries
    citation_keys:
      - <k1>
      - <k2>
  - Excluded by inclusion / exclusion criteria: <E> entries
    citation_keys:
      - <e1>
    (omit this sub-block if 0)
  - Skipped (criteria cannot be applied): <S> entries
    citation_keys with reasons:
      - <key>: <reason>
    (omit this sub-block if 0)
- Zero-hit note (emit per F3 only when Included: 0):
  Zero-hit note (corpus non-empty, 0 included after screening): possible
  causes are (a) corpus is stale relative to current RQ, (b) RQ has
  shifted away from what the user originally curated, (c) adapter
  exported entries unrelated to this RQ.
- Note: presence in corpus does not imply inclusion;
  same criteria applied to corpus and external sources.

The four Iron Rules

Iron Rule 1 — Same criteria

Apply the same Inclusion / Exclusion criteria to corpus entries and external database results. No exceptions. A corpus entry is not "pre-approved"; it must clear the same screening as a fresh database hit.

Iron Rule 2 — No silent skip

Any skipped corpus entry must be recorded in the PRE-SCREENED block's skipped sub-section with a reason. Silently dropping an entry is a prompt-layer violation. The lint enforces structural markers; behaviour is enforced by the BAD / GOOD example pair below and observed in real runs.

[corpus has 5 entries]
agent includes 3, excludes 1 (off-topic), and silently drops 1 with empty
abstract because "I cannot evaluate it".

PRE-SCREENED block reports:
- Total entries scanned: 5
- Included: 3 entries
- Excluded: 1 entry
(no Skipped sub-block)

(1 entry silently disappeared from the pipeline: 3 + 1 ≠ 5 — Iron Rule 2 violation.)

[corpus has 5 entries]
agent excludes 1 (off-topic), keeps 3 in pre_screened_included[].
agent records 1 with empty abstract as Skipped: "abstract empty after privacy clearing; criteria reference research method but only title is present, criteria cannot be applied".

PRE-SCREENED block reports:
- Included: 3 entries
- Excluded by inclusion / exclusion criteria: 1 entry
- Skipped (criteria cannot be applied): 1 entry
  - smith2024foo: abstract empty after privacy clearing; criteria reference research method but only title is present
- Note: presence in corpus does not imply inclusion;
  same criteria applied to corpus and external sources.

Iron Rule 3 — No corpus mutation

Consumer agents never modify, backfill, or derive new content into literature_corpus[]. Read only. The Material Passport's corpus is the user's curated list; any rewriting belongs to the user's adapter (v3.6.4 input port), not Phase 1 prompt-layer agents.

Iron Rule 4 — Graceful fallback on parse failure

Consumer agents do NOT re-validate schema, do NOT parse JSON Schema at runtime, and do NOT dereference source_pointer URIs. The v3.6.4 input-port lint validates adapter output, but a passport may reach a Phase 1 agent through other paths (hand-edits, resume_from_passport, assembled passports). When a consumer cannot parse literature_corpus[], emit [CORPUS PARSE FAILURE: <cause>] in the Search Strategy Report and fall back to external-DB-only flow. Do not abort Phase 1, do not attempt schema repair, do not invent contents.

Zero-hit and provenance reporting (F3 / F4)

Two reproducibility surfaces sit inside the PRE-SCREENED block. Every consumer agent must emit each one when the corresponding trigger fires; both are non-blocking and independent of which Step 2 case dispatches next.

Zero-hit note (F3). When pre_screened_included[] is empty after Step 1 — corpus is non-empty but no entry survived screening — the consumer emits a zero-hit note inside the PRE-SCREENED block listing the three plausible causes:

- Zero-hit note (corpus non-empty, 0 included after screening): possible causes
  are (a) corpus is stale relative to current RQ, (b) RQ has shifted away from
  what the user originally curated, (c) adapter exported entries unrelated to
  this RQ.

The note appears regardless of which Step 2 case fires next. Step 2 dispatch follows F3 in spec §4.1.

Provenance reporting (F4a–F4f). obtained_via and obtained_at are optional in v3.6.4 schema. The PRE-SCREENED block's Adapter: and Snapshot date: lines reflect actual coverage; consumers never invent enum values or guess timestamps.

F4a/b/c are mutually exclusive by trigger. F4d applies only when zero entries declare obtained_at; F4e and F4f compose. See spec §4.2 for the full precedence reasoning.

Consumer: bibliography_agent

Status: Wired in v3.6.5 Skill: deep-research Phase: 1 (literature search and curation) Agent file: deep-research/agents/bibliography_agent.md

The deep-research bibliography agent applies the corpus-first flow during its systematic literature search. The PRE-SCREENED block sits inside the Search Strategy section of its Annotated Bibliography output (per the agent's existing Output Format), preceding the existing DATABASES / Inclusion-Exclusion / RESULTS structure.

When literature_corpus[] is non-empty and parses cleanly, the agent enters Step 1 pre-screening. When the corpus is absent, empty, or fails the minimal shape check, the agent runs its existing external-DB-only flow (Iron Rule 4 graceful fallback for the failure cases).

Consumer: literature_strategist_agent

Status: Wired in v3.6.5 Skill: academic-paper Phase: 1 (literature search and curation) Agent file: academic-paper/agents/literature_strategist_agent.md

The academic-paper literature strategist agent applies the corpus-first flow during its literature search strategy phase. The PRE-SCREENED block sits inside the Search Strategy section of the Literature Search Report (per the agent's existing Output Format), immediately before the Databases line. The merged final_included set feeds the agent's downstream Annotated Bibliography, Literature Matrix, Research Gap Identification, and Recommended Sources by Paper Section outputs without altering their formats.

When literature_corpus[] is non-empty and parses cleanly, the agent enters Step 1 pre-screening, and Step 2 search-fills-gap dispatches the external 4-Layer Progressive Strategy. When the corpus is absent, empty, or fails the minimal shape check, the agent runs its existing 4-Layer external-DB-only flow unchanged (Iron Rule 4 graceful fallback for the failure cases).