Is animate dead compatible with Rights of Convocation?

[Gizmo the Enemy of Mankind]

The 4th level Witch feat called 'Rights of Convocation' is on page 102 of the P2e Advanced Player's Guide. Archives of Nethys link: https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=1573

It states (bold font added):

P2e-APG-p102 wrote:

"Your patron grants you the power to summon other creatures to aid you. Choose one summon spell (such as summon animal, summon construct, and so forth) that appears on the spell list of your spellcasting tradition. You can spend 10 minutes in communion with your familiar to replace one spell you've prepared in one of your witch spell slots with the spell you chose, heightened to the same level. The spell you replaced must be of at least the summon spell's minimum spell level."

As a player with an occult spellcasting witch, can I choose the animate dead spell? It does not have summon in the spell title but it is clearly a summoning spell by its nature, even using the word in the spell description three times:

P2e-APG-p214 wrote:

"Your magic dredges up a corpse or skeleton and fills it with necromantic life, and you force the dead to fight at your command. You summon a common creature that has the undead trait and whose level is –1; this creature gains the summoned trait. Heightening the spell increases the maximum level of creature you can summon."

My initial instinct is yes, this is compatible, but unlike every other summon spell, animate dead is of the Necromancy school rather than the Conjuration school. Also, the other summon spells (besides summon animal) use this wording:

"This works like summon animal, except you summon a common creature that has the [insert creature trait] trait"

This has me second guessing my initial instinct. Perhaps Paizo purposefully named animate dead differently to exclude it from feats like 'Rite of Convocation' after all. Possibly due to the final sacrifice spell since animate dead provides a renewable supply of mindless minions to explode.

[Castilliano]

While Animate Dead mirrors the Summon spells, it isn't one.
As you noted, it has a different school of magic and it's most likely similar to the other because of mechanics & balance rather than effect.
Since Summon isn't a spell trait, one must go by the names I'd think.
Perhaps most telling is you're also dredging up a corpse for use while the Summon spells poof a (faux) creature into existence.

I'd also think Paizo's aware enough of the Summon group to have made a distinct choice in naming, though maybe they were so set on getting an "Animate Dead" into play that they overlooked that. ?

Not that I'd argue a GM making a different call or be surprised at Paizo saying that Animate Dead counts, but the straightforward reading is it doesn't.

[Abyssalwyrm]

As strange as it is - the spell indeed summons undead, not creating it.
Main argument - spell doesn't requires a corpse.
So - yes.

[cavernshark]

The spirit of the spells seems to suggest it's a summon spell, even if it isn't to the letter. As a GM I'd argue it looks like a summon spell, acts like a summon spell, and even calls itself a summon spell in the text: so it's a summon spell.

My inclination would be to allow the feat to work unless someone came down from on high to say that this naming was intentionally meant to segment Animate Dead from the other summoning spells. I don't think the feat interaction here is so powerful that it makes much sense to err with the more restricted reading.

If you're in a home game, this seems like an easy clarification for the GM. If you're in a PFS game, you could hedge your bets and ask each GM you play with and try to learn an alternate summon spell to use when they say it doesn't work. Only the divine witch wouldn't have a backup at any low level -- the other traditions all have other summons.