Conceptual Figure Workflow

Conceptual Figure Workflow

This is a front-end workflow for research conceptual figures. It does not draw the final image directly. It prepares a defensible figure brief, then hands the brief to engineering-figure-agent.

Boundary

Use this skill when the figure depends on research logic:

• conceptual framework figures
• thesis or dissertation framework diagrams
• experiment design diagrams
• mechanism or pathway diagrams
• variable relationship or hypothesis diagrams
• paper overview schematics that must reflect theory, evidence, or study design

Do not use this skill for ordinary statistical plots. Use nature-figure for publication plots and multi-panel empirical figures.

Workflow

1. Read ../academic-research/SKILL.md and route the research-logic review to the smallest relevant internal workflow, normally academic-paper, deep-research, or experiment-agent.
2. If the figure is geography, human geography, GIScience, GeoAI, spatial analysis, environmental exposure, or health geography work, optionally read only the relevant files in ../shared/field-context/. Read ../shared/field-context/geography-conceptual-figure-patterns.md when selecting the figure structure.
3. Review the proposed figure logic before design:
   • research question, central claim ID, leading advantage and evidence state
   • theoretical constructs or variables
   • mechanisms, pathways, hypotheses, or stages
   • spatial and temporal units when relevant
   • claim-evidence boundaries; check reviewer objections internally and surface only material scientific or delivery issues
   • what must not be implied by the figure
4. Build a semantic contract before choosing layout:
   • approved nodes with construct type and evidence status
   • approved directed or undirected relationships
   • relation type, certainty, and causal status for every edge
   • spatial and temporal scale attached to the relevant nodes or edges
   • competing explanations and unresolved decisions in an issue ledger
5. Produce a figure brief using ../engineering-figure-agent/references/figure-brief-spec.md, including:
   • one-sentence figure purpose and the supported advantage readers should notice
   • audience and paper section
   • central claim or argument
   • semantic graph and render graph
   • panel, region, container, or layer plan
   • visual hierarchy, reading order, and edge ports
   • exact visible-text allowlist
   • label language, normally English unless the user asks otherwise
   • negative constraints and prohibited visual implications
   • candidate_mode: single or, only when structure is genuinely ambiguous, candidate_mode: explore
   • caption draft or caption logic, with evidence/derivation pointers for each assertion and the manuscript claim it supports
6. Hand the brief to engineering-figure-agent. Use its OpenAI image route for illustrative synthesis and its drawio route for exact, editable, label-heavy frameworks. Use nature-figure separately for quantitative or statistical panels. Do not ask an execution skill to reinterpret the theory from scratch.

For the meaning of approved nodes and edges, read semantic approval scope. Directly supported semantics do not require an extra approval round; new or conflicting scientific assertions still require a user decision.

Output Contract

When the user asks only for planning, return the figure brief and stop.

When the user asks to create the figure, first return or save the brief, then use engineering-figure-agent to execute it. Preserve the brief as the reviewable source of truth for later iterations.

For candidate_mode: explore, keep the semantic graph fixed while comparing 2-4 structural candidates. Refine only 1-2 selected directions. Use one issue ledger across candidates so rejected problems do not silently return.

Quality Rules

• Do not invent theory, mechanisms, variables, hypotheses, data, or citations.
• Separate confirmed evidence from design interpretation.
• Treat every arrow as a claim and record its relation type, direction, certainty, and causal status before rendering.
• Do not merge constructs merely to simplify layout. Simplify the render graph, not the semantic graph.
• Avoid causal arrows unless causality is part of the study design or theory.
• For spatial work, state the spatial unit and avoid implying scale-free effects.
• For health geography, separate exposure, vulnerability, access, outcome, and contextual pathways unless the user's theory combines them explicitly.