manuscript-preflight

name	manuscript-preflight
description	Triage a manuscript and supplied submission files for package completeness, declarations, claim-to-evidence traceability, and prioritized blockers. Use before pre-review or packaging when a manuscript, excerpt, file inventory, evidence ledger, or journal requirements are available.

Manuscript Preflight

Perform a bounded readiness check. This is decision support, not an acceptance or rejection prediction.

Required boundary

Inventory materials actually available and separate them from files merely mentioned. If there is no readable manuscript or stable excerpt, set status to BLOCKED; do not manufacture a review from a file name.

Use evidence-ledger.json when available. Treat a missing, invalid, or blocked ledger as a blocker for claim-traceability conclusions. A valid structure does not prove the truth of the science.

Use journal-specific requirements only when the extension injects a valid active journal pack. Otherwise mark journal-specific coverage not assessed.

Evidence states

• missing evidence: the material was not supplied or is unreported;
• negative evidence: supplied material directly demonstrates a failed criterion, inconsistency, or contradiction;
• uncertain: more than one interpretation remains plausible.

Never upgrade missing evidence into a negative claim. Anchor every finding to a file, section, heading, table, figure, page, paragraph, or short quotation. Use anchor unavailable when no stable locator exists.

Workflow

1. Check the applicable manuscript and package components.
2. Audit declarations without supplying answers: ethics and consent, registration, authorship and contributions, funding and sponsor role, conflicts, data/code/materials availability, acknowledgements, permissions, and reporting guidelines.
3. Map consequential claims to supplied support and canonical ledger claim IDs.
4. When both in-text citations and a reference list are readable, check bidirectional coverage, duplicate entries, conflicting supplied metadata, identifier syntax, and claim-to-source-to-anchor coverage. Report this as citation hygiene, not external citation verification.
5. Classify each finding:
   • blocker: responsible packaging or evaluation cannot proceed;
   • major: validity, interpretation, reproducibility, or required reporting is materially affected;
   • minor: localized clarity, consistency, or presentation work.
6. Record what was not assessed and what evidence would close it.

Any parsing error, missing required artifact, invalid sidecar, or unclosed blocker fails closed as BLOCKED. Do not automatically repair source files.

Call record_checkpoint with the strongest evidence boundary, uncertainty, or stop condition before returning. Prefix the statement with [manuscript-preflight].

Output

Return:

1. scope and materials;
2. readiness status and counts by priority;
3. prioritized findings with ID, priority, evidence state, anchor, impact, required action, and uncertainty;
4. package completeness;
5. declaration audit;
6. claim-to-evidence anchors;
7. citation-hygiene audit or not assessed;
8. unresolved uncertainties.

Do not invent files, declarations, citations, requirements, or author facts.