| name | paper-profile |
| description | Interactively elicits and stores the author's paper positioning so every other skill in this repo behaves context-awarely. Use when a researcher says "set up my paper profile", "ask me about my paper", "what verticals", "configure for my paper", "remember my positioning/style", or is starting a new paper and wants the toolkit tuned before drafting. Asks with sensible options about vertical/emphasis, contribution type, audience and venue tier, risk appetite, and writing preferences, then writes .paper-memory/profile.yml in the paper working directory. Explains how downstream skills consume it for benchmark-paper weighting, simulate-reviewers persona calibration, polish-prose/match-style register, and tailor-to-venue framing. Bundles a stdlib script profile_io.py that reads/writes/validates the file and emits a blank template. Local-only, never uploaded; advisory copilot, never submits. |
Paper Profile
Elicits the author's paper positioning once, stores it in
.paper-memory/profile.yml, and lets every other skill read it so the whole
toolkit behaves context-awarely instead of asking the same questions over and
over. This is the "ask me about my paper" front door: a short, optioned
interview, then a small validated YAML file the rest of the repo consumes.
It is a copilot, not an oracle. The profile records your stated intent
(what kind of paper this is, who it's for, how bold you want to be). It does
not judge whether the science is good and it never predicts acceptance.
When to use
- "Set up my paper profile" / "ask me about my paper" / "what verticals?"
- Starting a new paper and wanting the toolkit tuned before drafting.
- "Remember my writing style / positioning across skills."
- Any other skill notices
.paper-memory/profile.yml is missing and you want
to create it so that skill can personalize.
- Re-run any time the positioning changes (e.g. you drop down a venue tier, or
pivot from systems to empirical framing).
Inputs
- The user's paper working directory (where they want
.paper-memory/ to
live). This is the user's paper repo, not this skills repo.
- The user's answers to the interview (you ask; they pick). Nothing else is
required — there is no network call and no file the user must pre-create.
- Optional: an existing
.paper-memory/profile.yml to update instead of
starting fresh.
Process
-
Locate the paper directory and the memory dir. Confirm with the user
where their paper lives; the profile goes in <paper-dir>/.paper-memory/.
If one already exists, load and show it (profile_io.py show) and offer to
update rather than overwrite.
-
Show the option menu, then interview. Print the blank template so the
user sees the choices, then ask through them. Get the exact vocabulary from
the script so you never invent a value:
python3 scripts/profile_io.py schema. Ask in this order, always offering
the options and a one-line gloss of each (full descriptions live in
references/positioning-axes.md):
- vertical / emphasis (required):
systems | theory | applied |
empirical | survey | position. "Is the heart of the paper a built
artifact, a proof, a domain application, a measurement study, a synthesis,
or an argument?"
- contribution_type (required):
method | system | theory |
dataset | empirical | application | survey | position.
- audience:
specialists | broad-field | practitioners |
interdisciplinary.
- venue_tier (required):
top | specialized | regional |
journal | workshop | preprint | undecided; plus any concrete
target_venues (e.g. sigspatial-2026).
- risk_appetite (required):
safe | balanced | ambitious. "Defend a
tight incremental delta, or stake a big claim and accept polarized
reviews?"
- writing_preferences:
person (we/I/impersonal/venue-default),
tone, notation (heavy/light), british_spelling; plus
preferred_terms and avoid_terms.
- context:
prior_papers (paths/ids, for match-style),
constraints (hard deadline, must stay anonymized, no new experiments).
Offer a sensible default for each and let the user accept it. Do not
force every field — only the four required ones must be set.
-
Write and validate. Persist the answers with one call. The script
validates against the closed vocabulary and stamps the date; it refuses to
write an out-of-vocabulary value (so a typo can't silently corrupt the
file that every other skill trusts):
python3 scripts/profile_io.py write <paper-dir>/.paper-memory/profile.yml \
--field vertical=systems --field contribution_type=system \
--field venue_tier=top --field risk_appetite=ambitious \
--field audience=broad-field \
--field wp.person=first-person-we --field wp.tone=assertive \
--field target_venues="sigspatial-2026, vldb-2027" \
--field constraints="hard deadline 2026-08-01, no new experiments"
Use --from <existing> to update in place, repeated --field to set each
answer, comma-separated values for list fields, and wp.<key>=... for the
nested writing preferences. Re-validate any hand-edited file with
python3 scripts/profile_io.py validate <path>.
-
Set up .gitignore (ask first). .paper-memory/ is local — it holds
the author's private positioning and accumulated lessons. Recommend adding
.paper-memory/ to the paper repo's .gitignore unless the user
deliberately wants to version it (e.g. to share positioning with
co-authors). State the choice; let the user decide.
-
Explain how downstream skills consume it. Tell the user concretely what
changes now that the profile exists (see the table below and
references/downstream-consumption.md).
The point of the interview is that they won't be re-asked.
-
Mention the rest of .paper-memory/. This skill owns profile.yml.
The same directory also accumulates lessons.md (deduped, dated lessons
other skills append when they catch something, and read at start to avoid
repeating advice) and decisions.md (venue/track/positioning decisions
with rationale). See
the shared .paper-memory/ convention
for the file formats and memory-hygiene rules. This skill does not
write those two files; it just establishes the directory and explains them.
How downstream skills consume the profile
| Skill | Reads | Effect |
|---|
benchmark-paper | vertical, contribution_type | Re-weights scorecard dimensions (a theory paper isn't penalized for a thin evaluation; a system paper is). |
simulate-reviewers | vertical, venue_tier, risk_appetite | Calibrates reviewer personas + harshness; an ambitious claim at a top venue gets a skeptic, not a rubber stamp. |
polish-prose | writing_preferences, avoid_terms | Tunes the de-AI-ify / register pass to the author's person, tone, spelling, and banned terms. |
match-style | writing_preferences, prior_papers, preferred_terms | Seeds the target voice and terminology so alignment matches the author. |
tailor-to-venue / select-venue | venue_tier, target_venues, contribution_type | Frames the contribution and shortlist toward the stated targets. |
write-abstract | vertical, key_claim, audience | Leads with the claim the right reader cares about. |
These skills should degrade gracefully: if profile.yml is absent they
ask the user (or use venue defaults) as they do today. The profile removes the
re-asking; it is never a hard dependency.
Output
<paper-dir>/.paper-memory/profile.yml — a small validated YAML file
(schema v1). Required: vertical, contribution_type, venue_tier,
risk_appetite. Optional everything else.- A short plain-English recap of the positioning and the concrete behavior
changes in the skills the user is likely to run next.
Adapt to your discipline
The positioning axes are CS-flavored (systems/theory/empirical, conference
tiers, double-blind constraints). For other fields, edit the vocabularies at
the top of scripts/profile_io.py (e.g. add clinical-trial or
humanities-essay verticals, swap venue tiers for journal quartiles) — the
validator and emitter are data-driven, so new disciplines need new tokens, not
new code. Bump SCHEMA_VERSION if you change required fields.
Guardrails
- Never invent a vocabulary value. Pull the allowed values from
profile_io.py schema; the writer rejects anything else so the file every
other skill trusts can't be silently corrupted.
- Never decide for the user. Offer options and a default; the author picks
their own positioning and risk appetite. Don't infer "ambitious" because the
topic sounds exciting.
- Local and private.
.paper-memory/ is never uploaded anywhere; always
offer the .gitignore line and respect the user's versioning choice.
- This skill is configuration, not authorship. It records intent. It does
not write paper content, predict acceptance, or submit anything.
- Keep this file under 500 lines;
references/ go one level deep only.
