Paper Evidence Board

Maintain the paper-facing view of the research project: which claims the paper makes, what evidence supports them, where they appear, what reviewers may attack, and what actions are needed before submission.

Use this skill when:

• writing reveals that a paper claim lacks evidence
• new experiment results require updating paper narrative, figures, or sections
• review simulation creates experiment or writing actions
• a paper draft needs claim-evidence alignment before submission
• figures and tables need to be mapped to paper claims
• figure/table style needs to be tracked as a writing decision, including palette, markers, symbols, typography, and venue-facing visual conventions
• the user wants a live evidence board for a paper
• the project needs to decide whether a gap requires more experiments, rewriting, narrowing a claim, or cutting material

This skill is more specific than research-project-memory: it uses project memory as the source of cross-component truth, but creates a paper-facing board for writing and review decisions.

Pair this skill with:

• research-project-memory for project-level claim/evidence/risk/action IDs and writeback
• conference-writing-adapter when the board shows structural or paragraph-level writing changes
• experiment-design-planner when the board exposes missing evidence requiring new experiments
• result-diagnosis when new evidence weakens or complicates a claim
• paper-reviewer-simulator when the board should be stress-tested from a reviewer perspective
• figure-results-review when figures/tables need claim-support, caption, statistical, or visual-style review
• citation-coverage-audit when novelty or related-work gaps appear

Skill Directory Layout

<installed-skill-dir>/
├── SKILL.md
└── references/
    ├── board-schema.md
    ├── evidence-gap-triage.md
    ├── paper-section-map.md
    ├── report-template.md
    ├── reviewer-risk-integration.md
    └── update-protocol.md

Progressive Loading

• Always read references/board-schema.md, references/evidence-gap-triage.md, and references/update-protocol.md.
• Read references/paper-section-map.md when building a section-by-section board from a draft.
• Read references/reviewer-risk-integration.md when using reviewer simulation, real reviews, or venue-specific risks.
• Use references/report-template.md for substantial board reports.
• Verify current venue rules or reviewer forms when venue-specific evidence expectations matter.

Core Principles

• Every major paper claim should have a paper location, evidence status, and reviewer risk.
• Evidence should point to source artifacts, not only prose memory.
• A figure/table should have a job: support a claim, answer a reviewer question, or delimit scope.
• A paper-facing figure/table should also obey the paper's visual style policy, not just display correct numbers.
• Missing evidence is not a writing problem by default; it may require experiment design, result diagnosis, claim narrowing, or citation work.
• Do not hide negative or weak results. Mark how they change the claim.
• Keep the board actionable: each open gap should route to a next skill or action.

Step 1 - Locate Paper and Project Memory

Find:

• paper root: paper/, current directory, or user-provided path
• project root, if different
• memory/claim-board.md
• memory/evidence-board.md
• memory/risk-board.md
• memory/action-board.md
• paper/.agent/paper-status.md
• paper sources such as main.tex, paper.tex, sections/*.tex, figures, tables, and appendix

If project memory is missing, still build a paper board from the draft, but recommend initializing research-project-memory.

Step 2 - Extract Paper Claims

Read the draft or provided notes and extract:

• title and abstract claims
• introduction contribution bullets
• method claims
• theory claims
• experiment claims
• related-work novelty boundaries
• limitation and scope claims

Assign or reuse CLM-### IDs. For each claim, record:

• exact paper location
• claim type
• strength
• current wording risk
• evidence expected
• evidence available

Do not treat aspirational contribution language as proven evidence.

Step 3 - Map Evidence to Claims

Read references/board-schema.md.

For every evidence item:

• identify source path, run ID, table, figure, theorem, citation, or review text
• link to claim IDs
• mark status: planned, running, observed, reported, stale, contradicted, or cut
• mark certainty: observed, user-stated, inferred, stale, or needs-verification
• state limitations

If evidence is only in a daily log or chat note, mark it accordingly and create an action to verify source artifacts.

Step 4 - Build Section and Figure/Table Map

Read references/paper-section-map.md.

Create:

• section map: section -> claims -> evidence -> risks -> actions
• figure/table map: figure/table -> evidence -> claim -> required caption message -> stale status
• visual style map: palette, method-to-marker mapping, typography, symbols, figure sizing, and table conventions
• appendix map when relevant

Identify:

• claims repeated in multiple places with inconsistent strength
• figures without a claim
• claims without a figure/table/proof/citation when one is expected
• stale figures after new results
• inconsistent colors, symbols, method names, font sizes, or figure sizes across paper visuals
• result tables not discussed in prose

Step 5 - Triage Evidence Gaps

Read references/evidence-gap-triage.md.

For each gap, decide:

• new-experiment: needs experiment-design-planner
• result-diagnosis: existing result is ambiguous or contradictory
• rewrite: evidence exists but prose overclaims or hides it
• narrow-claim: evidence supports a smaller claim
• citation-work: claim needs missing related work or attribution
• cut: claim is not worth supporting
• accept-risk: limitation can be stated rather than fixed

Every high-risk gap should create an action.

Step 6 - Integrate Reviewer Risks

Read references/reviewer-risk-integration.md.

Use:

• simulated reviewer risks from paper-reviewer-simulator
• citation risks from citation-coverage-audit
• real review risks from rebuttal-strategist
• venue-specific expectations when known

Map each risk to:

• claim
• paper location
• evidence gap
• fix type: experiment, analysis, proof, citation, rewrite, figure/table, limitation, or rebuttal
• priority

Step 7 - Produce Board and Actions

Use references/report-template.md for full output.

If saving to a project and no path is given, use:

paper/.agent/paper-evidence-board.md

Output:

• paper snapshot
• claim-evidence matrix
• section map
• figure/table map
• visual style map
• evidence gaps
• reviewer-risk map
• action plan
• project-memory writeback

Step 8 - Write Back to Project Memory

If the project uses research-project-memory, update:

• memory/claim-board.md: claim status, wording, paper locations, and weakened/cut claims
• memory/evidence-board.md: evidence source paths, figure/table mappings, stale status, and limitations
• memory/risk-board.md: evidence-gap, writing, novelty, baseline, and reviewer risks
• memory/action-board.md: experiment, diagnosis, rewrite, citation, figure/table, and review actions
• paper/.agent/paper-status.md: current paper section state
• paper/.agent/visual-style.md: paper-facing figure/table style policy when visual conventions are material
• paper/.agent/paper-evidence-board.md: the paper-facing board

Do not duplicate long experiment reports. Link to them.

Final Sanity Check

Before finalizing:

• every major claim has a location and evidence status
• unsupported claims are marked as planned, narrowed, or cut
• every main figure/table has a claim-facing job
• paper-facing figures/tables share consistent colors, markers, symbols, typography, sizing, and notation
• stale evidence is marked
• reviewer risks link to actions
• next actions are routed to the right skill
• project memory is updated when present