# Publish Readiness Rubric > Use this skill when scoring an artifact's readiness for publication on GitHub, especially when the artifact must pass a deterministic boolean-atomic check before it ships. Triggers: any request to evaluate an artifact for publish-readiness, run the four-gate check, score against the Trinity Dialectic 3x3, generate a publish-readiness report, or apply criterion tags (Essential / Important / Optional / Pitfall) to a structured evaluation. The skill returns a binary verdict per row plus an aggregate verdict (PROMOTE / QUARANTINE / PROMOTE-WITH-WARNING). The rubric is mechanical, deterministic, and reproducible: the same input produces the same output. Do NOT use this skill for subjective quality assessment, for free-form code review, or as a substitute for the human's Pathos-Ethos-Logos verdict (PEL=1 is required and cannot be self-issued by the agent). - Skill: `0sxd/publish-readiness-rubric` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 6 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add 0sxd/publish-readiness-rubric` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/0sxd/publish-readiness-rubric/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: AI & ML - License: Apache-2.0 - Author: 0SxD (https://skillmd.com/u/0sxd) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/0sxd/publish-readiness-rubric --- # publish-readiness-rubric The rubric engine. Scores an artifact against a 15-row boolean-atomic matrix, applies criterion-importance tags from the Rubrics-as-Rewards pattern (arXiv 2507.17746), and emits a deterministic verdict. ## Why this skill exists Subjective publish-readiness assessments fail predictably. Two reviewers score the same artifact differently, a single reviewer scores the same artifact differently on different days, and the criteria drift over time as edge cases accumulate. The boolean-atomic rubric pattern solves all three: each row returns TRUE or FALSE, each row has a single objective check, and the criteria are version-controlled in this file. The criterion-importance taxonomy (Essential / Important / Optional / Pitfall) is taken from "Rubrics as Rewards" (Viswanathan et al., arXiv 2507.17746). The hard-rules-vs-principles split is taken from "OpenRubrics" (arXiv 2510.07743). The atomic-criteria approach is the same one Anthropic, OpenAI HealthBench (`openai/simple-evals`), and Scale AI use internally for evaluation. This skill is the engine. It is called by `ingest` at SCORE, by `github-curator` at STOP, and by the human directly when running an ad-hoc check. ## When to use Load this skill when the agent is asked to: 1. Evaluate any artifact (skill folder, markdown doc, packet zip) for publish-readiness. 2. Run the four-gate check (IP scrub, date consistency, no em dashes, PEL packet preparation). 3. Produce a Trinity Dialectic 3x3 report. 4. Apply criterion-importance tags to an existing checklist. Do not load this skill for subjective review, for arbitrary code review, or to issue a PEL=1 verdict. The agent never self-issues PEL. The human runs PEL after the rubric returns PROMOTE. ## The 15-row matrix The rubric is fixed at 15 rows. New rows are added only when a real publish-time failure surfaces a gap (the evolution rule from pre_submit_gate v1.0). Speculative rows are forbidden. Each row has four parts: ``` | # | Tag | Check | Expected | ``` `Tag` is one of: Essential, Important, Optional, Pitfall. `Check` is a single objective question with a TRUE/FALSE answer. `Expected` is the value that means PASS (TRUE for most rows; FALSE for Pitfall rows). | # | Tag | Check | Expected | |---|---|---|---| | 1 | Essential | `AGENTS.md` exists at repo root. | TRUE | | 2 | Essential | Each `skills//SKILL.md` frontmatter validates against agentskills.io spec. | TRUE | | 3 | Essential | Skill `name` field equals parent directory name, lowercase-hyphenated, ≤64 chars. | TRUE | | 4 | Essential | `description` field length is between 1 and 1024 chars. | TRUE | | 5 | Essential | `LICENSE` exists at repo root and is a recognized open license. | TRUE | | 6 | Essential | No em dashes (U+2014) and no en dashes (U+2013) anywhere in the artifact. | TRUE | | 7 | Essential | No tier-1 IP scrub hits (see references/ip-scrub-tiers.md). | TRUE | | 8 | Important | `CLAUDE.md` is the 3-line pointer to `AGENTS.md` (or symlink). | TRUE | | 9 | Important | `CHANGELOG.md` `[Unreleased]` reflects the diff being scored. | TRUE | | 10 | Important | `registry.yaml` rows match the `skills/` tree (no orphans, no missing). | TRUE | | 11 | Important | Conventional Commits message proposed for the change. | TRUE | | 12 | Optional | Compatibility field lists at least 3 host environments. | TRUE | | 13 | Optional | Reference docs follow progressive-disclosure conventions (loaded on demand, not eagerly). | TRUE | | 14 | Pitfall | Skill loads more than one body at activation time. | FALSE | | 15 | Pitfall | Reference doc is loaded eagerly in `SKILL.md` body (not on demand). | FALSE | ## Scoring procedure 1. Load the artifact under review. If it is a directory, walk it recursively. If it is a zip, unpack to `/tmp/score//`. 2. For each row, run the check. The check is mechanical: - Row 1: `test -f $REPO/AGENTS.md` returns 0. - Row 2: parse YAML frontmatter, validate against the spec. - Row 3: regex `^[a-z0-9][a-z0-9-]*$`, length ≤64, equals dirname. - Row 4: char count of description string, 1 to 1024. - Row 5: `LICENSE` file exists, contains "Apache License" or "MIT License" or another SPDX identifier. - Row 6: grep for U+2014 and U+2013 across the artifact tree. - Row 7: run the IP scrub against tier-1 patterns (see `references/ip-scrub-tiers.md`). - Rows 8 to 15: see `references/scoring-procedure.md` for full mechanical checks. 3. Record TRUE/FALSE per row. 4. Aggregate. ## Aggregation ``` ESSENTIAL_PASS = all Essential rows TRUE PITFALL_PASS = all Pitfall rows FALSE IMPORTANT_PASS = all Important rows TRUE OPTIONAL_PASS = all Optional rows TRUE VERDICT: if not (ESSENTIAL_PASS and PITFALL_PASS): QUARANTINE elif IMPORTANT_PASS: PROMOTE else: PROMOTE-WITH-WARNING ``` ## Output format The rubric returns a deterministic markdown report: ``` PUBLISH_READINESS_RUBRIC v0.1.0 artifact: date: scorer: publish-readiness-rubric | # | Tag | Result | Reason if FAIL | |---|---|---|---| | 1 | Essential | PASS | | | 2 | Essential | PASS | | ... (15 rows total) Aggregate: Essential: N PASS / M FAIL Important: N PASS / M FAIL Optional: N PASS / M FAIL Pitfall: N FALSE (good) / M TRUE (bad) VERDICT: PROMOTE / QUARANTINE / PROMOTE-WITH-WARNING Repair list (if QUARANTINE): - row N: ... ``` The same input produces the same output. The rubric is reproducible. ## The Trinity Dialectic 3x3 (escalation) For artifacts the human tags "run Trinity" (Greenhouse submission, public paper publication, public repo release), this skill also runs the 9-cell matrix from system_directive_protocol Section 5. The 9 cells are: | Cell | Question | |---|---| | Logos x Form | Is the artifact's structure logically sound, free of contradictions, atomically organized? | | Logos x Kind | Are the artifact's claims supported by traceable evidence (canon citation or human confirmation)? | | Logos x State | Does the artifact's reasoning chain match the human's current technical position (not stale)? | | Pathos x Form | Does the structure serve its persuasive purpose? | | Pathos x Kind | Will the artifact land with the intended reader as the human hopes? | | Pathos x State | Does the artifact express the human's voice as the human wants to be heard right now? | | Ethos x Form | Is the structure within the bounds of the human's professional and personal ethics? | | Ethos x Kind | Are the consequences of shipping net-positive across all stakeholders? | | Ethos x State | Does shipping preserve the human's integrity given current commitments and identity? | Trinity is escalation, not default. The default consequential-action gate is the simpler 15-row matrix above. Trinity is reserved for explicit "run Trinity" tags. The full Trinity output format is in `references/trinity-3x3-output.md`. ## What this skill does NOT do 1. Does not issue PEL (Pathos-Ethos-Logos) verdicts. PEL is the human's role per pre_submit_gate v1.0 rule 4. 2. Does not score subjective quality. "Is this prompt good" is not in the matrix; "does this prompt's frontmatter validate" is. 3. Does not modify the artifact. The rubric is read-only on the artifact under review. 4. Does not invent rows. New rows enter the matrix only after a real failure documented in CHANGELOG. ## Reference docs Loaded on demand, not at activation: - `references/scoring-procedure.md` the full mechanical check per row, including regex patterns and exact commands. - `references/ip-scrub-tiers.md` the tier-1, tier-2, tier-3 IP scrub patterns from the system_directive_protocol governance set. - `references/trinity-3x3-output.md` the 9-cell escalation format. - `references/criterion-importance-tags.md` the Essential / Important / Optional / Pitfall taxonomy with examples and arXiv lineage. - `references/evolution-rule.md` the procedure for adding a new row (real failure required, no speculation). ## Provenance This SKILL.md was authored 2026-04-26 by 0SxD. The boolean-atomic rubric pattern composes the Rubrics-as-Rewards importance taxonomy (arXiv 2507.17746), the OpenRubrics hard-rules-vs-principles split (arXiv 2510.07743), the HealthBench atomic-criterion approach (`openai/simple-evals`), the pre_submit_gate v1.0 four-rule pattern, and the Trinity Dialectic 3x3 from system_directive_protocol Section 5. All authored or composed by 0SxD; arXiv references are upstream. END_PUBLISH_READINESS_RUBRIC_SKILL