Time Series — Full Analysis & Manuscript Generation
Table of Contents
- Workflow
- Additional Inputs
- Output Structure
- Key References (read before generation)
- Reporting Standards
- Cross-Validation for Time Series (Mandatory)
- Cross-Skill Interface
Open-source skill. Read reference/specs/output-variation-protocol.md
before every generation — apply all variation layers.
Workflow
Continues from where vera-data-timeseries-reviewing stopped (PART 0-2 done).
| Step | Responsibility | Executor | Document | Input | Output |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Additional tests | Run Additional Tests | Main Agent | workflow/step04-run-additional-tests.md |
Prior step output | PART 3 code + prose |
| Subseries | Analyze Subgroups | Main Agent | workflow/step05-analyze-subgroups.md |
Prior step output | PART 4 code + prose |
| Modeling | Fit Models | Main Agent | workflow/step06-fit-models.md |
Prior step output | PART 5 code + prose |
| Comparison | Compare Models | Main Agent | workflow/step07-compare-models.md |
Prior step output | PART 6 code + prose |
| Manuscript | Generate Manuscript | Main Agent | workflow/step08-generate-manuscript.md |
Prior step output | methods.md + results.md |
Additional Inputs
Collect if not already provided:
- Target discipline (for reporting conventions)
- Target journal or style (APA 7th, STROBE, etc.)
- Research question / hypothesis
- Forecast horizon (if not set in initial testing)
- Whether volatility modeling is relevant
- Whether cross-series relationships exist
Output Structure
output/
├── methods.md
├── results.md
├── tables/ ← Markdown + CSV per table
├── figures/ ← PNGs, 300 DPI
├── references.bib
├── code.R ← Style-varied
└── code.py ← Style-varied
Key References (read before generation)
| File | Purpose |
|---|---|
reference/specs/output-variation-protocol.md |
Output quality variation layers |
reference/specs/code-style-variation.md |
Seven-dimension code style diversity |
reference/patterns/sentence-bank.md |
4-6 phrasings per result type |
reference/rules/reporting-standards.md |
Hard rules for statistical reporting |
Reporting Standards
Same as vera-data-timeseries-reviewing, plus:
- Model order notation: always ARIMA(p,d,q)(P,D,Q)[s] for seasonal models
- AIC/BIC: report for all fitted models for comparability
- Ljung-Box: report on residuals for every fitted model
- GARCH: report ARCH-LM test before fitting, conditional variance equation
- VAR: report lag selection criteria (AIC, BIC, HQ), Granger causality p-values
- Spectral: report dominant frequency, corresponding period, and power
- Forecast accuracy: RMSE, MAE, MAPE on hold-out set — frame as "which assumptions fit" not "which model wins"
- Tree-based with time series: frame as "exploratory"; never claim superiority over statistical models
Cross-Validation for Time Series (Mandatory)
Standard k-fold CV leaks future into past and MUST NOT be used on temporal data. All validation and hyperparameter tuning for this skill uses one of:
- Rolling-origin (fixed-size) forecast evaluation: at each split, fit on
data[t−w : t](fixed window w) and forecastdata[t+1 : t+h]; slide t forward. Recommended when the underlying process is approximately stationary. - Expanding-window forecast evaluation: fit on
data[0 : t](growing) and forecastdata[t+1 : t+h]. Recommended when more history helps the model.
Implementations: sklearn.model_selection.TimeSeriesSplit (Python), tscv::rolling_origin or tsibble::stretch_tsibble (R). Report the scheme used, window size w, horizon h, and number of splits. Never shuffle time-indexed data prior to split.
Cross-Skill Interface
Method Unit Contract:
├── code_r → .R script (style-varied)
├── code_python → .py script (style-varied)
├── methods_md → methods.md (varied structure)
├── results_md → results.md (varied phrasing)
├── tables/ → Markdown + CSV
├── figures/ → PNGs 300 DPI (varied layout)
├── references_bib → .bib with cited references
└── comparison → cross-method narrative (in results.md)
Invoked directly after vera-data-timeseries-reviewing or orchestrated by vera-data-application-pipelining.