> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.consensus.app/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Check a supplier's performance claim against independent research

> Test what a vendor says their material, tool, or process achieves against what the published literature independently reports.

## What you get

A per-claim verdict on a supplier's technical assertions: independently supported, supported only under narrower conditions, contradicted, or unstudied — with citations and the specific conditions each finding applies to.

## Who it's for

Technical evaluation teams, process and materials engineers assessing a new supplier, and anyone whose qualification programme is about to be sized around a vendor's datasheet.

## How it works

<Steps>
  <Step title="Split the datasheet into testable claims">
    "Higher throughput and better uniformity" is two claims with different evidence. Extract each as a proposition naming the material or system, the condition, the metric, and the comparator.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Pin down the comparator">
    "30% better" is meaningless without what it is better than. If the vendor has not said, that is itself a finding — record it and search against the conventional alternative.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Search the mechanism, not the brand">
    Trade names rarely appear in the literature. Search the underlying material, chemistry, or technique. This is the step that determines whether you find anything at all.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Run the negative pass">
    Search explicitly for null findings and failures with this approach. Independent groups publish disappointments that vendors do not mention.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Check the conditions match yours">
    A claim independently confirmed under conditions unlike your process is not confirmed for you. State the delta.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## The API calls

```bash theme={null}
# independent evidence for the mechanism
curl -G "https://api.consensus.app/v1/search" \
  -H "x-api-key: $CONSENSUS_API_KEY" \
  --data-urlencode "query=graphene-enhanced thermal interface material conductivity measured performance" \
  --data-urlencode "domain=mat,eng,phys" \
  --data-urlencode "include_full_text_chunks=true" \
  --data-urlencode "page_size=50"

# negative pass
curl -G "https://api.consensus.app/v1/search" \
  -H "x-api-key: $CONSENSUS_API_KEY" \
  --data-urlencode "query=graphene thermal interface material no improvement limitations contact resistance" \
  --data-urlencode "domain=mat,eng,phys" \
  --data-urlencode "page_size=50"
```

## Grading each claim

| Verdict                     | Meaning                                                                           |
| --------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Independently supported** | Multiple independent groups report comparable results under comparable conditions |
| **Supported, narrower**     | Confirmed, but only under conditions narrower than claimed. State which           |
| **Vendor-only**             | The only supporting work is authored or funded by the supplier                    |
| **Contradicted**            | Independent work reports the opposite or finds no effect                          |
| **Unstudied**               | No independent literature. Not the same as false — say what you searched          |

The **vendor-only** row does most of the work here. A claim supported exclusively by the supplier's own publications is not independently verified, and that distinction rarely survives a datasheet review otherwise.

## What to check before you trust it

* **Check author affiliations on supporting papers.** Supplier-authored or supplier-funded work is legitimate evidence but is not independent, and the difference matters for a qualification decision.
* **Unstudied is not disproven.** A genuinely novel material will have thin independent literature. Treat it as a reason to test rather than a reason to reject.
* **Coverage is patchy in this literature.** Much applied engineering work sits in closed proceedings; a thin result is weak evidence of absence.
* **This informs qualification, it does not replace it.** The literature tells you what to test and what to watch for, not whether the part works in your process.

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