jpoindexter Tufte Router
Front door to the 38-skill Edward Tufte pack. Route the task to the smallest set of sibling skills, load them, apply them to the work at hand. Do not return a catalog or a description of the pack — use it. (Tufte's own trilogy framing, VE p.10: VDQI = pictures of numbers, EI = pictures of nouns, VE = pictures of verbs.)
Loading sibling skills — works in any agent
Every sibling skill is installed beside this one, in the same skills directory: ../<slug>/SKILL.md relative to this file (e.g. ~/.claude/skills/tufte-sparklines/SKILL.md, ~/.codex/skills/tufte-sparklines/SKILL.md).
- Claude Code: invoke the sibling by slug with the Skill tool.
- Codex CLI, Copilot CLI, Gemini CLI, opencode, or any other agent: read the sibling's
SKILL.mdwith your file-read tool, then follow it. Reading the file IS loading the skill — no special tool required. - Single-file fallback: if the siblings are not installed, read
CANON.mdin this folder — the complete pack condensed into one document. Use it whenever loading multiple siblings is impractical in your runtime.
Route
- Treat any arguments after the invocation as the task. No arguments → use the active task.
- Select 1–4 skills from the routing table. Load them, apply them, and name which you used in one line.
- About to ship a display? Run the Master Audit below and load the matching skill for any point that fails.
Routing table
| Task signal | Load |
|---|---|
| New chart or graphic from scratch; choosing graphic vs table vs sentence | tufte-graphical-excellence |
| Axis scaling, truncated baseline, "is this misleading", pictogram sizing | tufte-graphical-integrity |
| Decluttering, "too busy", gridlines, fills, frames | tufte-data-ink-ratio + tufte-chartjunk |
| Visual noise, figure/ground, layer weights, boxed labels | tufte-layering-and-separation |
| Many series or conditions to compare; faceting; trellis | tufte-small-multiples |
| "How much data can this hold", sparse-vs-dense calls | tufte-data-density |
| Inline trends, KPI rows, word-sized graphics, table cells with history | tufte-sparklines |
| Choosing or reviewing color | tufte-color-in-information-design + tufte-redundant-encoding |
| Geographic or spatial data | tufte-data-maps + tufte-micro-macro-readings |
| Schedules, timetables, movement over time | tufte-space-time-graphics |
| Causal claims, A/B results, "did X cause Y", pre/post charts | tufte-causal-reasoning-in-graphics + tufte-evidence-corruption |
| Slide decks, report vs presentation, bullet hierarchies | tufte-cognitive-style + tufte-analytical-design |
| Diagrams with arrows or connectors; architecture diagrams | tufte-link-differentiation |
| Annotating images, screenshots, photos as evidence | tufte-mapped-pictures |
| Before/after, side-by-side, overlay comparisons | tufte-parallelism |
| Multi-image argument, poster, explainer composition | tufte-visual-confections |
| Labels, legends, table typography, linebreaks in data | tufte-typography-for-data |
| Multivariate data on a flat screen; >2 variables | tufte-escaping-flatland + tufte-multifunctioning-elements |
| Reports/docs where figures, tables, and text are segregated; "see Figure 3" | tufte-integration-of-modes |
| Annotating evidence, commentary layers, explaining a display in place | tufte-annotation-as-thinking |
| UI copy, wayfinding, help text, labels at the point of action | tufte-instructions-at-point-of-need |
| Step-by-step narrative, instructional sequence, motion in stills | tufte-narrative-and-sequence |
| Evidence quality, cherry-picking, model-searching, integrity of analysis | tufte-evidence-corruption + tufte-visual-thinking |
| Aesthetic polish, proportion, line weight, friendliness | tufte-aesthetics-and-technique |
| Sentence vs table vs graphic; dense reference tables, supertables | tufte-tables-and-text-tables |
| An org keeps shipping bad graphics; who makes them; review gates | tufte-graphical-competence |
| Suspected deceptive display; instructions showing hidden mechanics | tufte-disinformation-design |
| Chrome, frames, mounts, packaging accreting around finished work | tufte-presentation-of-artifacts |
| Backlogs, nav menus, taxonomies, tag systems — what order and why | tufte-lists |
| Design reviews, decision meetings, pre-reads, study-hall protocol | tufte-meetings-and-documents |
| Auditing an analysis or dataset for errors, bias, provenance, fraud | tufte-data-forensics |
| Reference indexes, back matter, asset registries, changelogs | tufte-visual-index |
| Dashboard, KPI card grid, metric tiles, status board | tufte-sparklines + tufte-tables-and-text-tables + tufte-data-density |
| Small-screen or mobile display; chart on a phone; how small can this go | tufte-data-density + tufte-sparklines |
| A specific chart type is in question — pie, donut, funnel, gauge, stacked area, dual axis, 3-D | tufte-graphical-integrity + tufte-graphical-excellence |
| Long table, many rows, big list, long log — must read at a glance and up close | tufte-micro-macro-readings + tufte-tables-and-text-tables |
| Heatmap, density plot, choropleth, session or attention map | tufte-micro-macro-readings + tufte-color-in-information-design |
| Accessibility, color-blind safety, grayscale survival, contrast of encodings | tufte-redundant-encoding + tufte-color-in-information-design |
| PRD, spec, RFC, technical doc, or report carrying numbers and figures | tufte-integration-of-modes + tufte-meetings-and-documents |
| Vendor demo, sales deck, procurement or tool evaluation, benchmark claim | tufte-disinformation-design + tufte-data-forensics |
| Portfolio, case study, app-store screenshots, showcasing finished work | tufte-presentation-of-artifacts + tufte-visual-confections |
| Glossary, definitions, terminology page, taxonomy of terms | tufte-lists + tufte-tables-and-text-tables |
| Incident timeline, project timeline, Gantt, sequence of events | tufte-space-time-graphics + tufte-narrative-and-sequence |
| Aspect ratio, proportion of a plot, slopes look wrong, chart is too tall or too wide | tufte-aesthetics-and-technique + tufte-sparklines |
| "Compared with what?" — missing baseline, control, or reference class | tufte-causal-reasoning-in-graphics + tufte-parallelism |
| How strong should a contrast be — smallest effective difference, contrast sizing | tufte-layering-and-separation |
| "Our audience won't understand this"; dumbing a display down for stakeholders | tufte-graphical-competence + tufte-cognitive-style |
| Accepting an inherited format, template, style sheet, or default chart type | tufte-visual-thinking |
| Interaction hides data — tooltips, hovers, drill-downs, collapsed panels | tufte-annotation-as-thinking + tufte-micro-macro-readings |
Precedence when several rows fire. Pick the narrowest matching row, then add at most one broader row. Specific collisions:
- Analysis-quality tasks:
tufte-data-forensicswhen auditing a dataset or method;tufte-evidence-corruptionwhen auditing a presentation of results;tufte-causal-reasoning-in-graphicswhen a causal claim is at stake. Load one, not all three. - Decks:
tufte-meetings-and-documentswhen the question is the meeting (format, pre-read, time budget);tufte-cognitive-stylewhen the question is the deck (density, bullets, headlines).tufte-analytical-designonly when defending a design against a standard. - Annotation:
tufte-mapped-pictureswhen the base is a photograph or scientific image needing scales and grids;tufte-annotation-as-thinkingwhen the base is a chart, diagram, or screen needing commentary.
Master Audit — run before shipping any data display
Each point names the skill to load for depth on a failure.
- Format — does this deserve a graphic at all (vs sentence/table)? Right form chosen? →
tufte-graphical-excellence - Truth — Lie Factor ≈ 1.0; visual dims ≤ data dims; no truncated baseline or spare dimension →
tufte-graphical-integrity - Ink — two-pass erasure done; grid gray or gone; no fills/3-D/shadows →
tufte-data-ink-ratio - Chartjunk — no moiré fills, dark grids, or ducks →
tufte-chartjunk - Density — data matrix as large as the question warrants; shrinkable by half? →
tufte-data-density - Multivariate — variables shown vs variables the phenomenon has →
tufte-escaping-flatland - Comparison — "compared with what?" answered on the display; everything compared in one eyespan, like against like, causal variable on the axis →
tufte-causal-reasoning-in-graphics(the question),tufte-small-multiples(the eyespan) - Layering — weight ∝ importance; 1+1=3 effects hunted; nothing boxed →
tufte-layering-and-separation - Color — role named (label/measure/represent/decorate); no red/green solo →
tufte-color-in-information-design - Type — direct labels, no legend; horizontal; tabular figures →
tufte-typography-for-data - Documentation — author, sources, scales, units, date on the display itself →
tufte-analytical-design - Integrity — data traceable; no cherry-picked baselines, bins, or models; headline = actual finding →
tufte-evidence-corruption
Guardrails
- Load 1–4 siblings, not the whole pack;
CANON.mdcovers the everything-at-once case. - Routing must end in application to the current task, not a summary of what the skills say.
- Chart selection and encoding mechanics (which chart type, perceptual channel ranking) live outside this pack — pair with a data-visualization skill if installed.