// Scaffold a new book project — folders, memoir-based LaTeX skeleton, custom style with voiced sidebars, bibliography stub, CLAUDE.md, README, and a chapter-per-file structure that converts cleanly to HTML later. Use at the start of a book project to get a compileable skeleton in one step. Parallel to /newproject and /bibcheck.
Warrant-first research GTD system. Manages the capture-clarify-organize-reflect-engage cycle for causal inference research. Scaffolds hypotheses/, insights/, decisions/ directories. Interrogates conjectures, files results, tracks binding decisions, checks pipeline freshness, drives the courtroom checklist.
Quick visual-collision check for figures — TikZ inside .tex files OR rendered .png/.jpg/.pdf figures from R/Python. Three checks only. (1) Bezier-curve label collisions via gap math. (2) Label-to-object whitespace. (3) Labels touching or running off the figure edge. These are the visual errors that compile cleanly — pdflatex never warns about them, ggsave never refuses to write them, so the agent that produced them does not know they are wrong. Use after generating any figure where visual correctness matters and you cannot eyeball it yourself.
Many-agent bibliography audit. Verify each citation in a .bib file by spawning narrow-focus agents that confirm DOI/URL and cross-check that all fields belong to the same paper. Catches mixed-up entries (one paper's title with another's authors), wrong years, journal misattributions, and unverifiable references. Use when reviewing a manuscript's bibliography for accuracy before submission, after literature review, or when inheriting a .bib from a coauthor.
End-to-end beautiful Beamer deck creation. Designs an original Beamer theme tailored to a specific audience, restructures existing content via the Rhetoric of Decks (ethos / pathos / logos), generates figures and tables from R/Python/Stata code first, embeds code blocks in the deck, produces standalone walkthrough scripts, compiles to zero warnings, runs /tikz for visual collision cleanup, and dispatches a graphics-only audit agent for label and coordinate checks. Use when creating a presentation from scratch or restructuring existing content into a new beautiful deck.
Download, split, and deeply read academic PDFs. Use when asked to read, review, or summarize an academic paper. Splits PDFs into 4-page chunks, reads them in small batches, and produces structured reading notes — avoiding context window crashes and shallow comprehension.
Peripheral vision audit for empirical output. Finds what the author cannot see — problems hiding in plain sight (vices) and opportunities being overlooked (virtues). Inspired by Viktor Shklovsky's defamiliarization and conversations with Jason Fletcher. Use when output exists and interpretation is about to happen.
| name | newbook |
| description | Scaffold a new book project — folders, memoir-based LaTeX skeleton, custom style with voiced sidebars, bibliography stub, CLAUDE.md, README, and a chapter-per-file structure that converts cleanly to HTML later. Use at the start of a book project to get a compileable skeleton in one step. Parallel to /newproject and /bibcheck. |
| allowed-tools | Bash(mkdir*), Bash(cp*), Bash(ls*), Bash(pdflatex*), Bash(touch*), Read, Write, Edit |
| argument-hint | [book-slug] [optional --title="Title"] [optional --chapters=N] |
Scaffold the standard structure Scott uses for a long-form book: memoir-based LaTeX, Palatino body, Gov-2001 palette, voiced-sidebar callouts, one chapter per file, a bibliography stub, a CLAUDE.md with voice and lineage rules, and a README.
This is the skill that produced AI Agents and the Research Worker. Use it any time a book-shaped project is starting.
The user is starting a book or book-shaped manuscript. They will give a slug (the folder name) and optionally a title and a chapter count.
00_frontmatter and an unnumbered conclusion).If unclear, ask before scaffolding. Do not guess.
Default location is the current working directory. Confirm if the user has not stated where. If a folder with the slug already exists and is non-empty, stop and ask whether to continue (this skill never overwrites).
mkdir -p <slug>/{chapters,style,bibliography,correspondence,decks,figures,code,drafts,progress_logs,substacks}
Each file below is written from a template in this skill's templates/ directory. Substitute __TITLE__, __SLUG__, __AUTHOR__, __DATE__, and __CHAPTERS__ per the arguments.
| File | Source template |
|---|---|
<slug>/book.tex | templates/book.tex.tmpl |
<slug>/style/<slug>.sty | templates/style.sty.tmpl |
<slug>/CLAUDE.md | templates/CLAUDE.md.tmpl |
<slug>/README.md | templates/README.md.tmpl |
<slug>/bibliography/<slug>.bib | templates/bib.bib.tmpl |
<slug>/decks/README.md | templates/decks_README.md.tmpl |
<slug>/chapters/00_frontmatter.tex | templates/00_frontmatter.tex.tmpl |
<slug>/chapters/NN_<name>.tex (one per chapter) | templates/chapter.tex.tmpl |
<slug>/progress_logs/__DATE__-setup.md | templates/progress_log.md.tmpl |
For the chapter stubs, generate 01.tex through <N>.tex (default 11) with placeholder titles like Chapter <n> that the user will replace. Each stub contains a \chapter{}, a % SUBSTACK MAP: placeholder block, a TODO bullet list, and one example \voice{Verifier}{...} sidebar.
Run pdflatex book.tex once and report whether it compiled. Do not require zero warnings on the first compile — the skeleton is a starting point, not a finished book.
Show the user:
<slug>/ scaffolded.
Title: <title>
Chapters: <N> + frontmatter + conclusion stub
Compile: <pdflatex book.tex> succeeded / had warnings (see book.log)
Next steps:
- Open CLAUDE.md and edit the voice cast and lineage rules for this book.
- Open chapters/01.tex and replace the placeholder title.
- Run /bibcheck bibliography/<slug>.bib once you have real entries.
mathpazo (Palatino math is included; no eulervm because it's not in TinyTeX by default).\voice{<name>}{<text>} — named voices have fixed colors; unknown voices fall to charcoal.idea and warn callouts as tcolorbox environments.chapters/, all \input-ed from book.tex. Enables HTML conversion later.\graphicspath{{figures/}{substacks/}} — figures from either folder work without per-include path.\flushbottom + \emergencystretch=3em — fewer overfull-hbox warnings on book-length text.\documentclass[..., openany]{memoir} — chapters do not force right-side opens (cleaner page count for skeleton).| Voice | Color |
|---|---|
| Fisher | slate |
| Ricardo / Thompson | warmgray |
| Skeptic | charcoal |
| Manager | ocean |
| IC | forest |
| Verifier | crimson |
| Goldin / Katz / Autor / Acemoglu | ocean |
| Schumpeter | warmgray |
User adds or renames voices in style/<slug>.sty and documents the cast in CLAUDE.md.
.bib is empty until the user provides entries.biber or process bibliography. The first compile is pdflatex only; once entries exist, the user runs the full chain.