Paper Spine Build

PaperSpine Build From Materials

Use this skill when the user does not have a real manuscript draft yet and instead provides a materials folder with experiment settings, results, figures, notes, PDFs, Word files, TXT/Markdown reports, or partial drafts.

This workflow shares the same research, motivation confirmation, evidence bank, section blueprint, and writing rationale matrix logic as paper-spine-rewrite. It is not a separate shortcut.

Required Inputs

• paper_rewriting_output/paper_spine_config.json
• materials_dir
• target scene and output language
• paper_rewriting_output/reference_materials/source_index.md
• paper_rewriting_output/research_dossier.md
• paper_rewriting_output/exemplar_learning_dossier.md
• paper_rewriting_output/style_profile.md
• paper_rewriting_output/sota_gap_map.md
• paper_rewriting_output/confirmed_motivation.md with user confirmation

If research or confirmed motivation is missing, do not draft. Return to paper-spine-research and ask the user to confirm the motivation after seeing research-grounded options.

First Pass

Run or emulate:

python scripts/material_inventory.py <materials_dir> --output-dir paper_rewriting_output

Create source_inventory.md before making claims.

Required Outputs

• paper_rewriting_output/source_inventory.md
• paper_rewriting_output/evidence_bank.md
• paper_rewriting_output/figure_asset_map.md
• paper_rewriting_output/claim_register.md
• paper_rewriting_output/section_blueprints.md
• paper_rewriting_output/writing_rationale_matrix.md
• manuscript draft as an intermediate artifact
• paper_rewriting_output/final_paper/main.tex
• paper_rewriting_output/final_paper/paper.pdf when a TeX engine is available
• paper_rewriting_output/latex_report.md
• paper_rewriting_output/final_artifact_manifest.md

Writing Rationale Matrix

Before final prose, create writing_rationale_matrix.md and read references/writing-rationale-matrix.md. The matrix is the build plan. It must be ordered by the target document's actual writing units, not by a fixed paper template.

Use this table:

The first data row must deeply justify the whole-work framework or throughline: why this controlling structure is chosen, how SOTA/target examples informed it, how it follows the confirmed motivation, which user evidence anchors it, and how the final manuscript/report will be checked against it. After that, split the work into the smallest useful units for the selected scene: abstract/summary moves, problem restatement, assumptions, model design, methods choices, result/claim units, review synthesis blocks, validation blocks, recommendations, headings, captions, or other argument-bearing fragments.

No row may be generic. Each row must state why that unit exists and how it is connected to the confirmed motivation, learned examples, target-scene norms, or user evidence. If a paragraph or figure claim needs a separate writing decision, it needs its own row.

Build Rules

• Treat images as potential figure assets, not as verified evidence unless the user explains what they show.
• Use existing document/PDF skills for complex PDF, DOCX, or scanned material extraction when available.
• Do not fabricate missing experiments or results.
• Copy user-approved figure assets into the final LaTeX project's figures/ folder and reference them with labels and captions.
• Follow output_language: en or zh.
• Always finish by routing through paper-spine-latex. A Markdown draft is not a final deliverable for this workflow.
• Build the final LaTeX project under paper_rewriting_output/final_paper/.
• If word_output is docx, generate final_paper/paper.docx and run scripts/word_guard.py, saving paper_rewriting_output/word_report.md.
• If output_language is en and translation_package is zh, create a full paper_rewriting_output/translation_zh/ package. This includes complete row-by-row translation of large intermediate files such as writing_rationale_matrix.md; partial translation or summary translation is a failure.

Read references/build-from-materials.md and references/writing-rationale-matrix.md before building the manuscript.