git:20260515.605c1c3 to git:20260727.37a3f77

+ description: Run a full referee review of a manuscript, six agents in parallel (spelling and style, internal consistency, unsupported claims, math and notation, tables and figures, adversarial top-journal referee), findings triaged CRITICAL/MAJOR/MINOR against a named target journal (MKSCI, JMR, JCR, MS, AER, QJE, JPE, Econometrica, REStud, AEJMacro, JME, RED, JF, JFE, RFS, JFQA). Writes a dated pre-submission report on your own draft, or with --referee a submittable referee report for a journal. Includes a buried-contribution desk-reject gate and a --quick pass. TRIGGER on "review my paper", "referee my draft", "is this ready to submit", "what would a referee say", "desk reject risk", "read this like Reviewer 2", "referee this for [journal]", "write my referee report", "I'm reviewing this submission", or any request to critique a full paper or PDF.

+ # review-paper

+ Six agents read the manuscript in parallel and return severity-tagged findings with quoted

+ evidence; the main thread consolidates them into one dated report ranked by what would sink the

+ paper. Nothing in the manuscript is edited. Topology and agent roles adapted from

+ [`claesbackman/AI-research-feedback`](https://github.com/claesbackman/AI-research-feedback), the

+ buried-contribution gate from

+ [`aspi6246/Claude-Code-Presentation`](https://github.com/aspi6246/Claude-Code-Presentation).

+ ## Options

+ | Argument | Default | Meaning |

+ |---|---|---|

+ | a journal name (first token) | `top-field` | journal persona and bar for agent 6 |

+ | a file path | auto-detect | main `.tex`, or a `.pdf` of the compiled draft |

+ | `--quick` | off | run only agents 6 and 3, skip the rest |

+ | `--referee` | off | journal referee mode: a submittable report, see below |

+ Recognized journals, case-insensitive. Marketing: `MKSCI`, `JMR`, `JCR`, `MS`. Economics:

+ `AER`, `QJE`, `JPE`, `Econometrica`, `REStud`, `AEJMacro`, `JME`, `RED`. Finance: `JF`, `JFE`,

+ `RFS`, `JFQA`. Anything unrecognized is treated as a file path, and an absent journal means

+ `top-field`: high general standards for a leading field journal, no specific persona. Add

+ journals by editing this list. Store the result as `TARGET_JOURNAL`.

+ ## Referee mode

+ `--referee` switches the skill from a pre-submission check on the user's own draft to a

+ submittable report on a paper the user is refereeing for a journal. Enter this mode when the flag

+ is passed, when the user says they are refereeing, or when the paper is clearly not theirs. When

+ it is ambiguous whose paper it is, ask which hat the user is wearing before doing anything else.

+ What changes:

+ - The manuscript must be supplied as a path or a PDF. Phase 1 uses step 1 only; never glob the

+ working directory or the Overleaf projects. If no path was given, ask for one.

+ - Agent 6 keeps its full brief, including the buried-contribution gate, but critiques the paper

+ for the editor and drops every piece of advice addressed to the author: no fallback outlets in

+ part 5, no coaching on what would reach the target's bar. Its recommendation becomes one of the

+ journal's conventional decisions: accept, minor revision, major revision, or reject.

+ - All six agents still run (two with `--quick`), and the CRITICAL/MAJOR/MINOR triage still

+ happens, as internal analysis. The final report is written from that analysis and never shows

+ the tags.

+ The output replaces the phase 3 structure. Write `REFEREE_REPORT_<YYYY-MM-DD>.md` to the current

+ working directory, or wherever the user says; never into an Overleaf project. Address it to the

+ editor and the authors in the conventional register:

+ 1. A summary paragraph restating the paper in the referee's own words: the research question, the

+ design, the data, and the main findings. Specific enough to show the paper was read.

+ 2. Major comments, numbered. Built from the CRITICAL and MAJOR findings: identification threats,

+ missing analyses, overclaiming, internal contradictions. Each states the issue, points at the

+ exact location, and where possible says what would resolve it.

+ 3. Minor comments, numbered. Notation, exposition, table and figure documentation, typos worth

+ the authors' time. Compress agent 1's copy edits into a few representative items; a referee

+ report is not a proofreading pass.

+ 4. Recommendation, with a short justification tied to the major comments.

+ Report back in chat: the report path, the recommendation, and the counts of major and minor

+ comments.

+ ## Phase 1: find the manuscript

+ 1. An explicit path argument wins. The Read tool cannot open a `.pdf` on this machine (it needs

+ `pdftoppm`; this setup assumes no Homebrew and no poppler, so adjust to yours), so route every PDF through the helper:

+ `~/.claude/assets/bin/pdfread.py text paper.pdf` for the text, or

+ `~/.claude/assets/bin/pdfread.py png paper.pdf --pages N --dpi 150 --out /tmp/p` and then Read

+ the PNG when the layout or a figure matters. Never call `pdftotext` or `pdftoppm`.

+ 2. No path: Glob `**/*.tex` in the working directory.

+ 3. Still nothing: Glob `~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox*/Apps/Overleaf/*/*.tex` (this setup

+ assumes Overleaf projects sync there via Dropbox), show the matching project

+ directories, and ask which one. Do not guess between projects.

+ In referee mode, step 1 is the only step: skip steps 2 and 3 and ask for the path if none was

+ given.

+ Then build the file set. The main document is the `.tex` containing `\documentclass` or

+ `\begin{document}`; follow every `\input`, `\include`, and `\subfile` to get the rest, and read

+ all of them. Figures are `**/[Ff]igure*/**/*.pdf` and the same for `png`, `jpg`, `jpeg`, `eps`,

+ `svg`, plus root-level images. Tables are `**/[Tt]able*/**/*.tex` plus root-level

+ `*[Tt]able*.tex`. Exclude `**/_minted-*/**`, `**/build/**`, `**/output/**`, `**/.git/**`, and

+ Dropbox conflicted copies (`*conflicted copy*`), which are stale and produce phantom findings.

+ Record every file path and its role, the figure and table lists, and the title, authors, and

+ abstract. If no figures turn up, tell the user they may live in a non-standard directory and to

+ re-run with an explicit path. Same for tables, adding that agent 5 will then be limited to

+ captions and cross-references.

+ ## Phase 2: launch the agents

+ One message, all agents at once, `subagent_type: general-purpose`. Each agent prompt is the

+ shared brief below, then that agent's checklist, then its output sections. Subagents inherit

+ nothing, so write the shared brief into every prompt in full. Agent 6 additionally gets the line

+ "The target journal is `<TARGET_JOURNAL>`" and keeps the conditional logic in its brief intact.

+ ### Shared brief (paste into every agent prompt)

+ > You are reviewing an academic empirical manuscript. Read every file listed at

+ > the end of this prompt, completely, before writing anything. Files are LaTeX source unless

+ > noted. The Read tool cannot open a `.pdf` here, so get PDF text with

+ > `~/.claude/assets/bin/pdfread.py text <file.pdf>` (add `--pages 1-20` to work through a long

+ > document in chunks). `pdftotext` and `pdftoppm` are not installed in this setup; do not call them.

+ >

+ > Ignore LaTeX markup unless the markup is itself the problem. For every finding, quote the exact

+ > text and give a location precise enough to find it without searching: file and section for

+ > LaTeX, page and paragraph for a PDF.

+ >

+ > Tag every individual finding with a severity at the start of its line, one tag per item, never

+ > per section:

+ > `[CRITICAL]` would trigger a desk rejection or invalidates a claim, and must be fixed before

+ > submission. `[MAJOR]` a referee will raise it and it costs a revision round. `[MINOR]` polish.

+ >

+ > Report only what the files support. If a check is impossible from the sources you were given,

+ > say so explicitly instead of skipping it silently, and do not speculate about content you

+ > could not read. An empty category is a real finding: write "None found" instead of padding.

+ >

+ > Files to review: [tex paths] Figures: [figure paths] Tables: [table paths]

+ ### Agent 1, spelling, grammar, and academic style

+ Copy editor at a top empirical journal. Check misspellings, with attention to proper nouns,

+ technical terms, and confusable pairs (affect/effect, principal/principle); grammar, including

+ subject-verb agreement, tense discipline (present for findings, past for what was done),

+ articles, dangling modifiers, comma splices, fragments; sentences that need re-reading, supplying

+ a clearer alternative; typographic consistency (hyphenation such as "long-run" versus "long run",

+ attributive versus predicative "high-income", em versus en dash); number formatting (under ten

+ spelled out in prose, "15%" versus "15 percent" used consistently).

+ Flag every instance of: "interestingly", "importantly", "notably", "it is worth noting",

+ "obviously", "clearly" (delete, let the finding speak); tautologies ("very unique", "absolutely

+ essential"); "significant" used for size or importance when it should mean statistical significance;

+ "This paper contributes to the literature by" (show it); passive voice where active is natural;

+ inconsistent person ("we find" alongside "the paper argues").

+ Output sections: Critical, Major, and Minor issues, each a numbered list of

+ `[TAG] location | "problem text" -> "correction" | reason`; then Recurring style patterns, one

+ example per pattern with a global fix instruction.

+ ### Agent 2, internal consistency and cross-references

+ Technical reviewer checking whether the paper contradicts itself.

+ 1. Numerical consistency. Every number in the text (coefficients, percentages, sample sizes,

+ years) must match the referenced table, read from the table source directly. Numbers that

+ exist only inside a figure image cannot be verified from source; skip those instead of flagging

+ them.

+ 2. Abstract against body, and introduction previews ("we find X") against what the results

+ section actually delivers.

+ 3. Terminology. List the key terms and flag any that shift meaning across sections, including

+ variable names that change and technical terms used interchangeably with loose synonyms.

+ 4. Sample description: years, observation counts, and filters consistent across abstract, data

+ section, and table notes.

+ 5. Fixed effects and controls: what each specification claims versus what its table shows.

+ 6. Magnitude and direction of the same finding wherever it is restated.

+ 7. Citations. Every author-year cited in text must have a bibliography entry. Flag missing ones.

+ For citations that carry the paper's positioning (closest prior work, "X shows Y" claims that

+ the argument leans on), verify with

+ `~/.claude/skills/reading-papers/scripts/paper.py resolve "<author year title>" --json` and

+ flag any characterization that does not match the cited work. Do not audit the whole

+ bibliography entry by entry; that is the `bibcheck` skill's job. Check the citations the

+ argument leans on.

+ Output sections: Critical inconsistencies (`[TAG] location A <-> location B | what conflicts`);

+ Terminology drift (term, how it varies, recommended standard); Minor inconsistencies.

+ ### Agent 3, unsupported claims and identification integrity

+ Skeptical econometrician enforcing claim discipline: a claim must never exceed what the

+ identification allows. This agent works at the sentence level; the overall research design is

+ agent 6's job.

+ 1. Causal language ("causes", "leads to", "drives", "determines", "due to", "results in") applied

+ to findings that are only correlational. Quote the sentence, say why it exceeds the design,

+ and separate two cases: causal words over a correlation, and a mechanism described as an

+ established fact when it is a hypothesis.

+ 2. Generalization past the sample: managerial or policy implications drawn from one platform,

+ market, or period without an argument for why they travel.

+ 3. Mechanism claims asserted instead of argued.

+ 4. Missing caveats. Walk the obvious threats for this design (selection into the sample, reverse

+ causality, measurement error, omitted variables) and flag each one the paper never addresses.

+ 5. Priority claims ("we are the first to show", "no prior study has examined"). Check with

+ `~/.claude/skills/reading-papers/scripts/paper.py resolve` or `cites`; if a counterexample

+ turns up, that is `[CRITICAL]`. If the search is inconclusive, flag it as an unverified

+ priority assertion the authors must confirm, and do not rule on it yourself.

+ 6. Statistical versus economic or managerial significance: significance reported with no

+ discussion of magnitude, or "significant" standing in for "important".

+ 7. Hedging in both directions: claims stated too strongly, and strong results buried under

+ excessive hedging.

+ Output sections: Causal overclaiming (`[TAG] location | "quote" | why it overclaims | fix: weaken

+ the language or add the evidence`); Generalization issues; Missing caveats (topic, where it

+ belongs, suggested text); Minor language issues.

+ ### Agent 4, mathematics, equations, and notation

+ 1. Correctness: derivations follow from stated assumptions, no algebraic or arithmetic errors,

+ subscripts and terms in written regressions match the verbal description.

+ 2. Notation consistency: one symbol per quantity (list every symbol defined and flag reuse),

+ stable subscript conventions ($i$ individual, $t$ time, $g$ group), vectors and matrices

+ distinguishable from scalars.

+ 3. Undefined notation: every symbol defined at or before first use.

+ 4. Equation numbering: referenced equations are numbered, numbered equations are referenced, and

+ each in-text reference points at the right equation.

+ 5. Specification consistency: the written equation against the verbal description, the table

+ column headers, and the stated controls and fixed effects. Variables in the text but not the

+ equation, and vice versa.

+ 6. Rate definitions: annualization formulas, percent versus percentage point, log approximations

+ flagged where used.

+ 7. Inference notation: standard error, t-statistic, and confidence interval formulas, and

+ clustering notation consistent with how the paper says inference is done.

+ 8. LaTeX math problems that change meaning or readability: missing `\left`/`\right` on tall

+ delimiters, `*` for multiplication, unwrapped text in math mode, broken alignment in multi-line

+ equations.

+ Output sections: Mathematical errors (location, error, correction); Notation inconsistencies

+ (symbol, the two conflicting uses, resolution); Undefined notation; Specification issues; LaTeX

+ math formatting.

+ ### Agent 5, tables, figures, and their documentation

+ Journal production editor. The Read tool displays `.png`, `.jpg`, and `.jpeg` figures visually.

+ For a figure saved as `.pdf`, rasterize it first with

+ `~/.claude/assets/bin/pdfread.py png fig.pdf --dpi 200 --out /tmp/fig` and Read the PNG. Look at

+ every figure you can render and judge what is actually plotted. For a `.eps` figure, ghostscript

+ (if installed) can rasterize it when needed:

+ `gs -dSAFER -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=png16m -r200 -o /tmp/fig.png fig.eps`, then Read the PNG.

+ `.svg` cannot be viewed; assess it from caption, notes, and label text only, and say that is

+ what you did.

+ For every table: a caption that stands alone; column headers naming the dependent variable and

+ the specification difference; notes covering sample definition, dependent variable and units,

+ controls, fixed effects, how standard errors are computed and at what clustering level, the

+ meaning of the stars, and whether the parenthetical is a standard error or a t-statistic;

+ standard errors and N in every column, with differing samples across columns made explicit; every

+ table cited in text and every in-text reference pointing at a table that exists and shows what is

+ claimed; consistent decimals, stars, and fixed-effect indicators.

+ For every figure: a self-contained caption; both axes labeled with units; a legend for multiple

+ series; confidence intervals on binscatters, coefficient plots, and event studies; notes covering

+ the sample, what is plotted (raw data or residuals after controls), bin counts and absorbed

+ controls for binscatters, what the intervals represent, and the data source; every figure cited

+ in text, with the description matching what the image shows. Where you viewed the image, also

+ flag unreadable fonts, overlapping labels, truncated axes, and colors that die in greyscale.

+ Output sections: Tables with missing or incomplete notes (by table number); Figures with missing

+ or incomplete notes (by figure number); Cross-reference issues; Formatting inconsistencies.

+ ### Agent 6, contribution evaluation (adversarial top-journal referee)

+ Demanding associate editor deciding whether the paper goes to referees or gets desk rejected.

+ Exacting and specific, not hostile. Adopt the norms of `TARGET_JOURNAL`: for a named marketing

+ journal, its scope, methodological bar, framing expectations around substantive marketing

+ relevance and managerial implications, and its audience; for a named economics or finance

+ journal, the same; for `top-field`, high general standards with no journal persona.

+ Part 1, the central contribution. State in one sentence what the paper claims to contribute. Is

+ it new or a replication in a new setting? What is the closest prior paper and what does this add

+ beyond it? Does it settle something researchers disagree about? Does it change how people think

+ about the topic? Rate it Transformative, Significant, Incremental, or Insufficient for the target

+ journal, and justify in two or three sentences.

+ Part 1b, buried-contribution gate. From `\begin{document}`, counting prose only (skip LaTeX

+ commands, comments, and the abstract), count words until the first sentence containing "we find",

+ "we show", "we document", "our main result", "the headline", "we report", "in this paper, we",

+ "the contribution", or "we contribute". Report the count and the phrase that matched, or "no

+ trigger found in body". Over 2500 words: `[MAJOR]`, headline finding buried deep, strong

+ desk-reject risk at MKSCI, JMR, JCR, and MS. Between 1500 and 2500: `[WARN]`, buried roughly

+ three double-spaced pages in, a common desk-reject signal. At or under 1500: `[OK]`. If the

+ abstract already delivers the headline unambiguously, downgrade `[WARN]` to `[INFO]` and note

+ why. Never downgrade `[MAJOR]`: a 2500-word runway buries the finding whatever the abstract says.

+ Part 2, identification and credibility, judged at the design level (sentence-level claims are

+ agent 3's job).

+ What variation identifies the main result, is it plausibly exogenous, and what are the threats?

+ Does the paper confront them or paper over them? Is the finding causal, correlational, or

+ descriptive, and does the paper claim the right one? What would a skeptical econometrician say in

+ a seminar, and what would it take to convince a top-journal audience?

+ Part 3, analyses. Required (up to 5, absence is a blocker): robustness checks not performed,

+ including any the paper claims but does not show; alternative explanations left standing; missing

+ placebo or falsification tests. For each, state the analysis, why its absence undermines

+ credibility, and what a positive result would do to your view. Write "None" if the paper covers

+ its identification concerns. Suggested (up to 5, not blockers): mechanism tests, subgroup

+ analyses, extensions, each described precisely with why it matters and whether it is feasible

+ given the data the paper describes.

+ Part 4, literature positioning. Are the right papers cited, and what is obviously missing? Does

+ the paper distinguish itself from the closest work? Is it over-citing minor papers and

+ under-citing major ones? Is the introduction's framing the most compelling one available?

+ Part 5, journal fit and recommendation. For a named journal, is this a strong fit on scope,

+ methods, and contribution level, and what are the fit risks? For `top-field`, name the best

+ realistic targets. Recommend Send to referees, Revise before sending to referees, or Desk reject,

+ say concretely what would reach the target's bar, and name the best fallback outlet.

+ Part 6, four to seven pointed questions aimed at the weakest points, worded as they would appear

+ in a referee report.

+ Tag every Required analysis `[CRITICAL]` and every Suggested analysis `[MAJOR]`. Output sections

+ follow parts 1 through 6 in order, with part 1b inside part 1.

+ ## Quick mode

+ With `--quick`, run agents 6 and 3 only, in parallel, and skip phase 1's figure and table globs.

+ This is the cheap gut check: does the paper have a contribution, is it buried, and does the prose

+ claim more than the design supports. Emit the report with only those two sections plus the

+ priority list, mark the header `Scope: quick (contribution and identification only)`, and tell

+ the user that consistency, math, tables and figures, and copy editing were not run.

+ ## Phase 3: consolidate and save

+ If an agent returns nothing or malformed output, insert a placeholder section ("Agent did not

+ return output") and say so in the summary. Do not silently drop it and do not re-run the whole

+ fanout for one failure.

+ In referee mode, consolidate the same way but write the report described in the referee mode

+ section instead of the structure below.

+ Save to `PRE_SUBMISSION_REVIEW_<YYYY-MM-DD>.md` in the main `.tex` file's directory, suffixing

+ `-v2`, `-v3` if that name is taken. Structure:

+ # Pre-submission referee report

+ Paper: <title> | Authors: <authors> | Date: <YYYY-MM-DD>

+ Review standard: <journal name, or "leading field journal" for top-field>

+ ## Overall assessment

+ <Three or four sentences: what the paper does, from agent 6 part 1; its principal strength, from

+ the contribution rating; the single most critical issue, from the top of the priority list. Do

+ not introduce judgments the agents did not make.>

+ Preliminary recommendation: <copied verbatim from agent 6 part 5, not paraphrased>

+ ## 1. Contribution and referee assessment <- agent 6

+ ## 2. Unsupported claims and identification <- agent 3

+ ## 3. Internal consistency <- agent 2

+ ## 4. Mathematics and notation <- agent 4

+ ## 5. Tables, figures, and documentation <- agent 5

+ ## 6. Spelling, grammar, and style <- agent 1

+ ## Priority action items

+ Build the priority list by collecting every tagged item across agents and ranking:

+ `[CRITICAL]` from agent 3 and agent 6 part 2 first, then `[CRITICAL]` from agent 6 part 3, then

+ remaining `[CRITICAL]` in agent order, then all `[MAJOR]`, then `[MINOR]`. Keep each item's

+ source agent and location so the author can jump to it. A `[WARN]` from agent 6's part 1b enters

+ the list as `[MINOR]` unless the reviewer upgrades it; `[OK]` and `[INFO]` stay in the report

+ body and never enter the priority list.

+

+ Then report back in chat: the report path, agent 6's recommendation, the top five action items,

+ and the count of findings in each severity.