thesis-docx

name	thesis-docx
disable-model-invocation	true
description	Create, revise, and format thesis or dissertation Word documents with strict academic formatting control. Use when an AI agent needs to generate or revise thesis content, normalize Word styles, follow a school template, fix captions or page numbers or section levels, or produce evidence-based Mermaid figures and LaTeX-formatted code listings for a thesis document.
session-mode	none

Thesis DOCX

Overview

Use this skill for thesis-oriented .docx work where content quality and format fidelity both matter. Prefer Microsoft Word desktop automation over WPS-like alternatives whenever the task involves batch formatting, styles, captions, pagination, tables of contents, or cross-references.

This skill is designed to avoid the most common thesis-editing failure mode: the agent makes broad formatting changes too early, introduces new layout problems, and then forces the user to catch them one by one. The default behavior should therefore be:

1. audit first,
2. separate explicit school requirements from unspecified formatting,
3. fix only what is justified,
4. re-check page by page before claiming completion.

Pre-load (before execution)

1. Codebase docs: If .workflow/codebase/ARCHITECTURE.md exists, read for project context
2. Specs: maestro load --type spec --category coding — load coding conventions
3. Wiki knowledge: maestro search "thesis academic writing docx formatting" --json — top 5 entries as prior context
4. All optional — proceed without if unavailable

Workflow

1. Check Microsoft Word and COM/DOM automation first.
   • On Windows, run:

   powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts/check_word_com.ps1 -Json
   

   • If Word is missing, COM is unavailable, or DOM access fails:
     • Stop the automation-heavy plan.
     • Tell the user to install desktop Microsoft Word.
     • Explain briefly that WPS or similar tools are likely to degrade layout fidelity for thesis formatting.
2. Read the user's real constraints before editing.
   • Collect the thesis template, school formatting guide, screenshots, existing document, sample pages, and any explicit chapter rules.
   • If the user gave formal requirements, follow them strictly.
   • If the user did not give requirements, do not invent school-specific standards. Use conservative academic defaults and say that they are defaults.
   • Explicitly classify requirements into two buckets before editing:
     • must enforce: school guide, template, user-confirmed style rules
     • preserve current state: anything the school guide does not define
3. Audit the DOCX / OOXML before risky bulk edits.
   • Prefer scripts/audit_docx_ooxml.py before large-scale formatting.
   • Use it to detect hidden indentation, section drift, stale REF display text, and style-ID mismatches before deciding on a repair strategy.
4. Standardize with styles, not scattered direct formatting.
   • Reuse and repair existing styles whenever possible.
   • Create missing styles only when no matching style exists.
   • Keep body text, headings, figure captions, table captions, references, abstract, and appendix styles separate and consistent.
   • Before changing any style globally, inspect whether the document contains direct paragraph formatting or OOXML overrides that will survive the style change.
5. Edit content only from user-provided facts.
   • Expand, polish, or reorganize thesis text only within the user's topic, evidence, codebase, notes, or source material.
   • Do not invent experimental data, system structure, entities, or results.
6. Generate figures only when the source material is sufficient.
   • Use Mermaid for architecture diagrams, E-R diagrams, flow charts, state diagrams, and similar thesis figures.
   • Base every node, field, relation, and dependency on real materials from the user, such as code, SQL schema, API docs, project docs, or the thesis draft itself.

Style Strategy

• Treat styles as the single source of truth for formatting.
• Prefer these logical style buckets:
  • Body Text
  • Heading 1 / Heading 2 / Heading 3
  • Figure Caption
  • Table Caption
  • References
  • Abstract
  • Keywords
  • Appendix Title
• If the document already has equivalent styles, map to them and normalize their font, spacing, indentation, and numbering behavior.
• If direct formatting conflicts with styles, reduce the direct formatting and bring the document back under style control.
• Do not globally normalize sections that the school guide does not specify. Examples of high-risk overreach:
  • page header/footer redesign when the user only asked for headings
  • changing code box appearance when the task is only about references
  • normalizing table internals when the school guide does not regulate them
• When a visual issue remains after style normalization, inspect hidden OOXML state such as firstLineChars, numbering indentation, titlePg, differentFirstPageHeaderFooter, REF field display text, and direct run formatting.

Audit-First Discipline

Before bulk editing, produce and internally follow a checklist like this:

1. Which parts are explicitly regulated by the school guide?
2. Which parts are user-defined house rules?
3. Which parts are currently acceptable and must be preserved?
4. Which problems are structural vs. visual-only?
5. Which fixes can be done safely through styles?
6. Which fixes require Word COM or OOXML-level patching?

Do not say "finished" merely because a structural audit looks good. For thesis work, pagination and page-level rendering are part of correctness.

High-Risk Pitfalls

Read references/failure-patterns-and-quality-gates.md before large-scale formatting work. In particular, guard against:

• style names that look correct but map to the wrong style IDs
• paragraph-level direct formatting that overrides the intended style
• firstLineChars or numbering indentation creating invisible extra indents
• TOC fields or cross-reference fields showing stale display text
• section-level first-page settings causing missing headers or page numbers
• Word vs. WPS differences for table row height, vertical alignment, and code box title clipping
• punctuation normalization that accidentally rewrites DOI, URLs, code, or English references

Visual Review Rule

For school-format-sensitive thesis work, final verification should prefer this order:

1. Word COM/DOM structural checks
2. Word export to PDF
3. page-by-page PDF review
4. only then final delivery language

If page rendering cannot be verified, say so explicitly instead of implying the formatting is fully validated.

Figure Rules

• Use Mermaid when a thesis figure is needed and the structure can be traced to real source material.
• Keep the diagram academically neutral and concise.
• Avoid decorative labels, chatty callouts, and speculative entities.
• Match the user's terminology unless it conflicts with the real materials.
• Read references/figure-and-code-rules.md before generating diagrams.

Code Listing Rules

• Prefer LaTeX-oriented code presentation when the thesis includes code listings.
• Keep the listing faithful to the actual code.
• Trim non-essential boilerplate when it does not support the thesis argument.
• If the user requests a specific LaTeX package or listing style, follow it.

Resource Guide

• scripts/check_word_com.ps1
  • Detect whether Microsoft Word desktop and COM/DOM automation are available.
• scripts/audit_docx_ooxml.py
  • Audit DOCX styles, direct indentation, section settings, numbering, and REF field behavior before making risky formatting changes.
• scripts/normalize_word_styles.ps1
  • Batch-normalize thesis body text, Heading 1-3, figure captions, and table captions through Word COM automation.
• scripts/export_word_pdf.ps1
  • Export the current thesis document to PDF through Word COM for page-level review.
• scripts/render_mermaid_figure.ps1
  • Render Mermaid source into thesis-ready SVG, PNG, or PDF figure assets.
• references/paper-format-workflow.md
  • Read for the standard Word thesis formatting workflow.
• references/figure-and-code-rules.md
  • Read before generating Mermaid figures or LaTeX code listings.
• references/failure-patterns-and-quality-gates.md
  • Read before large-scale formatting or before claiming the thesis is fully checked.
• references/script-usage.md
  • Read for command examples and config file conventions.

Final Checks

• Confirm the document is still style-driven after edits.
• Confirm captions, numbering, page breaks, and table of contents are coherent.
• Confirm cross-references display the current target labels, not stale field text.
• Confirm section settings do not silently remove page headers or page numbers from first pages.
• Confirm references are formatted according to the school rules and that punctuation normalization did not damage DOI or English references.
• Confirm every diagram and code block is grounded in user-provided material.
• Export to PDF and inspect every page before saying the format is complete.
• If Word automation or PDF verification was unavailable, explicitly warn that layout fidelity was not guaranteed.