Skip to content
Get packs

Build Evidence Map

Turns a contested decision into a sourced map of supporting, opposing, and missing evidence

Source Download skill
Repository
github/awesome-copilot
Stars
40,703
Licence
MIT
Files
5 files

What it does

When you face a contested technical choice or a consequential decision, this skill makes the agent lay out its current verdict alongside the evidence for it, the evidence against it, qualifications, and the facts still unknown. Each piece of evidence is tied to a specific source location with dates and a short excerpt, and the relationships are saved as a structured JSON file that can be checked by a bundled validator and optionally rendered as an HTML view. It does not make the answer true; it makes the reasoning traceable and harder to hide disagreement in prose.

Great for

  • Engineers weighing a technology or architecture choice who want the trade-offs and counterevidence written down
  • Researchers or analysts synthesizing several sources that partly disagree
  • Reviewers of proposals who need to see what is missing before approving

Skip it if

  • Simple fact checks or single claims, where a lighter verification workflow is enough (the skill itself says so)
  • Situations needing a verdict without sourcing, since the skill requires real source excerpts and locators; inventing them defeats its purpose
  • Automated runs that call the optional render or network verification step without permission, which the skill forbids but which could send data to remote URLs if misused

Try asking

  • “Build an evidence map for whether we should migrate our service from REST to gRPC, with sources and counterarguments”
  • “Map the evidence for and against a proposed database change and list the unknowns that would change the decision”
  • “Review this research paper's claim against other studies and produce a validated evidence map”
Step-by-step guide: how to use Build Evidence MapInstall, first run, examples, tips and FAQs

Install in 3 steps

  1. 1

    Download the skill

    The ZIP contains the 5 original files, the MIT licence and an attribution note.

    build-evidence-map.zip
  2. 2

    Add it to your agent

    Claude Code (all projects)

    mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && unzip build-evidence-map.zip -d ~/.claude/skills/

    Claude Code / Agent SDK (this project only)

    mkdir -p .claude/skills && unzip build-evidence-map.zip -d .claude/skills/

    Claude apps (web/desktop): Settings → Capabilities → Skills → Upload skill, and choose the ZIP.

  3. 3

    Ask for the task

    No special command needed — the agent reads the skill's description and loads it when your request matches. Try one of the prompts above.

Get better results

  • Start with one falsifiable question and a provisional position so the map has a clear target
  • Ask the agent to include contrary and qualifying sources, not only supporting ones, and to record exact locators
  • Only run the network verification command if you are comfortable with the listed URLs being fetched, and treat validation as traceability, not proof of truth

What's inside

  • references/evidence-ladder.md
  • references/map-schema.md
  • scripts/contract.mjs
  • scripts/validate.mjs
  • SKILL.md

Redistributed unmodified from github/awesome-copilot under the MIT licence. The assessment was drafted with AI from the skill's files on 2026-10-29. Skills can instruct your agent to run code — read SKILL.md and any scripts before installing.