[WHAT] Scientific-methodology skills for the SciTeX ecosystem — publication-quality figures, statistics, experiment reproducibility. Distinct from `general/` (which covers package engineering) and per-package skills (which cover package-specific APIs). Load when authoring analysis scripts, preparing figures for manuscripts, or checking scientific rigour of ecosystem output.
[WHEN] Authoring analysis scripts, preparing figures or PDF reports for manuscripts, or auditing scientific outputs of any ecosystem package.
[HOW] Read SKILL.md as the index, then drill into the numbered sub-skill leaves (`01_figures_*`, `02_research-project_*`, `03_reporting_*`) for the relevant topic.
Installation
Install with Codex or Claude Copy this prompt, paste it into Codex, Claude, or another assistant, and let it review the skill page and install it for you.
[WHAT] Scientific-methodology skills for the SciTeX ecosystem — publication-quality figures, statistics, experiment reproducibility. Distinct from `general/` (which covers package engineering) and per-package skills (which cover package-specific APIs). Load when authoring analysis scripts, preparing figures for manuscripts, or checking scientific rigour of ecosystem output.
[WHEN] Authoring analysis scripts, preparing figures or PDF reports for manuscripts, or auditing scientific outputs of any ecosystem package.
[HOW] Read SKILL.md as the index, then drill into the numbered sub-skill leaves (`01_figures_*`, `02_research-project_*`, `03_reporting_*`) for the relevant topic.
pip install scitex — scientific-methodology conventions shared across every ecosystem package that produces research artefacts.
These complement (never duplicate) the engineering rules in ../general/SKILL.md. General covers how a package is built; scientific covers how the research outputs should look.
Sub-skills
0. Planning
00_planning_01_hypotheses-agreement.md — Numbered, falsifiable hypotheses (H1/H2/...) with metric + prediction + baseline + falsification. Required before writing any experiment script. Research-project counterpart of the architecture agreement for pip packages.
00_planning_02_paper-structure.md — How to design and compact a manuscript: one-claim-one-figure-one-Result spine, lead with dataset+experimental-design Result, explicit float manifest over implicit glob, write Introduction & Discussion last, simplify redundant designs, flag provisional storyless results, panel-level figure sketches bound to build scripts.
1. Figures
01_figures_01_standards.md — Universal scientific-figure standards: comparison rules (shared color scale, aligned axes), multi-panel layout, color maps, PDF report layout. Pairs with figrecipe/21_scientific-figure-patterns.md for matplotlib code.
01_figures_02_provenance-and-verification.md — A figure is a generative, verifiable artefact: figrecipe (recipe YAML + DATA + media, WHAT vs HOW), paper consumes media via symlink, every figure a Clew claim with a hash-verified Source->Figure DAG; the verification-boundary concept (expensive upstream steps as hashed Source leaves) and the rule that Clew-unverified means unmachine-checkable, not wrong.
01_figures_03_no-synthetic-data-policy.md — Ecosystem policy: publication / paper / representative figures must use real data; fail loud when absent. Canonical home (figrecipe 23_* cross-links).
2. Research project — how a research project consumes SciTeX
Project structure split into one leaf per top-level directory:
02_research-project_07_config-and-parameters.md — @stx.session and the CONFIG object (SDIR_OUT, SDIR_RUN, YAML deep-merge, CLI/env overrides). Use when adding parameters to a script, debugging config resolution, or auditing an experiment for reproducibility.
02_research-project_09_id-readability-and-data-immutability.md — UUID/random upstream IDs → readable ordinal symlinks (provenance preserved in target name); raw data stays compressed in src/capsules/; extractions in mirrored src/capsules_extracted/; strategies for very large datasets.
02_research-project_10_naming-and-numbering.md — Three rules: zero-fill all numbering to max-ID width (lex-sort = numeric-sort); mirror naming across scripts/ / tests/ / data/; cohort/group context in the path, not the filename.
3. Reporting
03_reporting_01_pdf-reports.md — Recurring scientific PDF analysis reports — timestamped filenames, mandatory section structure, navigable bookmarks (fpdf2 / pikepdf), aspect-preserving figure embedding, size management for email (<10 MB, DPI/ghostscript/split), and delivery tracking via email + issue-tracker comment.
4. Clew adoption — translating any project into a Clew-verifiable form
04_clew_01_dag-as-map-and-evidence.md — Conceptual: same SHA-256 DAG in two modes — map (live, read-write, used during build/exploration by agents and authors) and evidence (post-hoc, read-only, used by reviewers). Read first when adopting Clew on any project.
04_clew_02_translation-playbook.md — Universal agent prompt: 5 inputs (CAPSULE_ID, CAPSULE_PATH, QUESTIONS_PATH, ORACLE_PATH, WORKDIR), tier dispatch (easy / notebook / medium / hard), agent-vs-verifier split, scoring schema, DONE signal. Loadable as spec.skills.required on any sac agent yaml.
5. Private skills for consumer projects (research repos, paper repos, internal apps)
05_private-skills_01_consumer-project.md — 4-layer skill stack (public-package, fleet-private, consumer-project private, gitignored notes), where each lives, decision tree for "where does this new agent-facing doc go?", lift-up rule (transient → reusable → public), concrete paper-scitex-clew layout. Pairs with ../general/03_interface/04_skills/06_public-vs-private.md (which is for package authors); this leaf is for consumer projects.
6. Scitexification — translating existing code into SciTeX form
06_scitexification/SKILL.md — Single source of truth for the translation act itself, package-agnostic. 5-stage arc (io, session/config, plt, repro+clew, naming) each holding independently. Load BEFORE picking the per-chapter topic. Chapters drill into specific stage patterns; per-package APIs delegate to the per-pkg SKILL.md (scitex-io, figrecipe, scitex-clew, ...). Clew-specific specialization lives in 04_clew_*; this skill is the general form.
06_scitexification/00_playbook.md — Canonical universal playbook. Coins the vocabulary (scitexify/scitexification/scitexified), fixes the universal contract (inputs, pre-flight, phase dispatch, done condition, forbidden), and frames the honest source-grounding principle — "attempt every claim, ground where possible, include the ungroundable with null + reason, NEVER silently omit" — as a general scientific-integrity norm, independent of any evaluator. Read first when scitexifying any artefact.