G.2:11 - SoTA-Echoing — keep a reusable synthesis current without restarting it

Practice question. How should several downstream authors reuse a synthesis when new sources can change a consequential, unsettled comparison? The selected line keeps a question-bound source ledger, separable claims and explicit update causes; a living protocol is chosen when continuing evidence surveillance is worth its cost. A serious alternative is a well-reported static review with an explicit search date and a separately commissioned update. That alternative is sufficient for a stable question or a one-time decision and avoids maintaining a continuing review service.

The Cochrane Handbook, Chapter 22, §§22.2.3–4 supplies the conditional living-review line and its resource trade-off: priority, uncertainty and likely new evidence can justify frequent updates, while additional searching needs resources. Adapt this conditional choice in HarvestProtocols; declare the search/update policy rather than treating every G.2 pack as perpetually living. The clinical-review guidance does not establish coverage or evidence adequacy for an arbitrary engineering CG-frame.

The PRISMA 2020 reporting guidance supplies the substantive static-review comparator and a shared reporting basis. Its explanation of study selection distinguishes records, reports and included studies. Adapt the distinction to CorpusLedger, FlowRecord and the declared family units in §4.3: multiple source entries can concern one counted family. Reject treating a publication count or a completed flow diagram as proof of adequate family coverage. G.2’s k threshold, lineage duties and FPF alignment rules remain local decisions, not PRISMA requirements.

The 2024 PRISMA-LSR extension supplies the more specific reporting line for an actually selected living protocol: justify that mode, identify the version’s trigger and changes, and plan when to retire it. Adapt that distinction to the policy pins, change causes and downstream handoffs in §4.3 and G.2-2 Extend; G.11 governs refresh orchestration. Source reporting guidance does not supply an automatic update schedule or establish that a newly added claim is sound.

The control-stack case in §5.1 makes the improvement concrete. If e1’s operating-envelope claim is revised, the existing ledger identifies M-R and its consumers; re-examine that claim and the comparisons that depend on it. The new report does not add a family. The method-only count remains 2 until a distinct admitted method-family unit is found. A static review can also be updated correctly, but each separate consumer must recover the changed basis unless a shared update is published. For the same new source and receiving question, the selected pack reuses existing screening and claim relations; its added maintenance burden is justified only while repeated shared use and consequential change make that work useful.

Reopen the choice of protocol when the evidence rate, decision importance, uncertainty or maintenance resources change; retire living surveillance when its reason no longer holds. Reopen an individual synthesis when a new source changes a relied-on claim, coverage judgement or alignment. A source with a new date but no relevant content change does not by itself warrant reconstructing every downstream conclusion.