| name | research-integrity-guardrail |
| description | Use when a researcher needs manuscripts, reports, or study materials audited for unsupported claims, inconsistent numbers, citation gaps, reproducibility omissions, or overstatement. |
Research Integrity Guardrail
Protect the evidence chain before polishing language. This skill audits a research artifact; it does not invent evidence, conceal uncertainty, or make unsupported work sound more convincing.
Establish the audit boundary
Identify the artifact, its audience, the claimed contribution, and the materials available for verification: manuscript, figures, tables, reference list, raw calculations, methods, code, protocol, or supplementary files. Mark any missing material as unverified rather than inferring it.
Build an evidence ledger
For each consequential claim or result, record:
| Claim or result | Evidence location | Verification status | Required action |
|---|
| Table, figure, source, calculation, method, or code | Supported / unclear / inconsistent / unsupported | |
Do not treat a citation as verification unless it actually supports the claim being made.
Audit in this order
- Numbers and cross-references: reconcile repeated counts, percentages, ratios, P values, figure labels, table values, and appendix references.
- Claims and citations: locate each major claim's support; flag orphaned citations, unused references, missing close comparators, and statements stronger than their evidence.
- Methods and reproducibility: check that datasets, preprocessing, exclusions, controls, parameters, statistics, code, and evaluation splits are sufficiently described for the stated result.
- Interpretation: distinguish observed findings from mechanism, causality, clinical meaning, novelty, and generalization. Require limitations where they materially affect interpretation.
- Presentation integrity: identify selective reporting, missing negative cases, unexplained visual choices, and claims that do not trace to a figure, table, calculation, or source.
Return findings before revisions
Lead with material risks, ordered by severity. Separate facts from judgment:
- Blocked: demonstrably inconsistent, unsupported, or missing evidence.
- Needs verification: cannot be checked from the supplied materials.
- Conservative rewrite needed: evidence exists but the wording overstates it.
- Editorial: clarity or structure issue with no integrity implication.
Use this format:
## Integrity Findings
1. [Blocked] Location - issue - evidence - required fix
## Evidence Ledger
| Claim or result | Evidence location | Verification status | Required action |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
## Release Decision
- Ready items:
- Blocking items:
- Items requiring author confirmation:
Only after the user resolves the material risks should this skill help revise wording. For journal formatting, use journal-submission-normalizer; for manuscript-journal fit, use journal-selection-advisor; for figure QA, use polish-sci-figures.
