| name | cover-letter-generator |
| description | Generates a journal-ready cover letter from manuscript metadata, highlights, and journal-fit notes. Use when preparing an academic submission package and you need editor-facing language that clearly states novelty, relevance, declarations, and corresponding-author details. |
| license | MIT |
| author | AIPOCH |
Source: https://github.com/aipoch/medical-research-skills
Cover Letter Generator
Draft a submission-ready academic cover letter for a target journal. This skill is for editor-facing academic writing, not for inventing missing paper content.
When to Use
- The user is preparing an initial manuscript submission.
- The user has a paper title, contribution summary, and target-journal context.
- The user wants a professional cover letter with journal fit, novelty, declarations, and closing details.
- The user needs a deterministic structure rather than ad-hoc prose.
When Not to Use
- The user has not chosen a target journal and only wants a generic marketing blurb.
- The user is asking for peer-review responses, rebuttal letters, or grant cover pages.
- The user wants you to invent results, journal scope, reviewer identities, or declarations that were not supplied.
Required Inputs
Minimum required:
- manuscript title
- target journal
2-4 core contributions or innovation points- corresponding author name, affiliation, and email
Strongly recommended:
- one-sentence journal fit rationale
- brief methods summary
- brief key-results summary
- originality / exclusive-submission statement
- optional reviewer suggestions
- optional conflict-of-interest or ethics statement
Missing-Input Recovery
If any required field is missing, do not output a fake journal-ready letter. Use this structure first:
Cannot finalize the cover letter yet.
Missing required items:
- <item 1>
- <item 2>
Usable fallback:
- I can draft a partial letter shell after these items are supplied.
Only draft a partial shell if the user explicitly wants one after seeing the missing items.
Output Contract
Return a complete letter using the structure below:
- Salutation to the editor
- Submission request with manuscript title and journal name
- Journal-fit paragraph
- Novelty / contribution paragraph
- Methods + key-results paragraph
- Relevance / readership / reproducibility paragraph
- Required declarations paragraph
- Optional reviewer / COI paragraph
- Professional closing with corresponding-author identity
Formatting rules:
- professional, restrained tone
4-6 short paragraphs- no hype language such as
groundbreaking, revolutionary, or game-changing
- no claims not grounded in supplied manuscript information
- no bullet lists in the final letter unless the user explicitly requests them
Drafting Workflow
1. Validate inputs
Confirm that all required items are present.
If not:
- invoke
## Missing-Input Recovery
- stop before drafting a "journal-ready" letter
2. Build the journal-fit angle
Write 1-2 sentences that connect:
- manuscript topic
- target journal scope
- expected readership
Avoid generic fit claims like This paper will interest your readers unless followed by a concrete reason.
3. Write the contribution core
Summarize:
- what is new
- why it matters
- what prior gap or limitation it addresses
Keep this focused on contributions, not full manuscript retelling.
4. Add methods and results evidence
Use only concise, high-signal evidence:
- study approach
- model, dataset, or experimental system
- strongest result or takeaway
Do not turn this section into a mini-abstract.
5. Add declarations
Always include or explicitly request:
- originality / not under review elsewhere
- author approval
Add journal-specific statements if the user supplies them:
- ethics approval
- informed consent
- data availability
- code availability
- conflict of interest
- suggested reviewers
Journal-Specific Declaration Matrix
Use the following logic:
- Basic engineering / methods journal:
include originality, author approval, code/data availability if relevant
- Biomedical / clinical journal:
include originality, author approval, ethics / consent if relevant, COI, data availability
- Computational journal:
include originality, author approval, reproducibility / code availability if relevant
If the user does not provide a declaration that may be required, ask for it rather than inventing it.
Templates and Assets
- Use
assets/cover_letter_template.md as the paragraph skeleton.
- Use
references/guide.md as the preflight checklist.
Deterministic Rules
- Keep paragraph order stable.
- Mention the journal name in the opening paragraph exactly once unless there is a clear need to repeat it.
- Keep reviewer suggestions and COI in the closing section, not the middle of the letter.
- If a quantitative result is not supplied, describe the contribution qualitatively instead of guessing numbers.
Quality Checklist
Before returning the letter, verify:
- the journal fit is concrete
- the novelty statement is specific
- the methods / results paragraph is concise
- declarations are present or explicitly requested
- the final tone sounds like editor-facing academic correspondence
Error Handling
- If required inputs are missing, state exactly which fields are missing and request only the minimum additional information.
- If the task goes outside the documented scope, stop instead of guessing or silently widening the assignment.
- If execution fails, report the failure point, summarize what can still be completed safely, and provide a manual fallback.
- Do not fabricate files, citations, data, search results, or execution outcomes.
Input Validation
This skill accepts requests that match the documented purpose of cover-letter-generator and include enough context to complete the workflow safely.
Do not continue the workflow when the request is out of scope, missing a critical input, or would require unsupported assumptions. Instead respond:
cover-letter-generator only handles its documented workflow. Please provide the missing required inputs or switch to a more suitable skill.
