git:20260905.ecda92b to git:20261001.bf5afd6

39 added, 78 removed. Audit A to A.

---

name: manuscript-review-council

- description: Produce a journal-style peer review of a scientific manuscript with specialist reports and an editor decision. Use when assessing publication readiness, or whether a revision or author response resolves scientific objections.

+ description: Journal-style manuscript peer review with specialist reviewer reports and an editor decision. Use when judging publication readiness or whether a revision or author response resolves scientific objections.

---

# Manuscript Review Council

- Run a journal-style review council instead of a single blended opinion. This skill is self-contained and works in both Codex and Claude Code.

+ Run a journal-style review council instead of a single blended opinion. The skill is self-contained and works in Codex and Claude Code.

- The council definition lives in local files:

- - role roster: `references/reviewer-roles.md`

- - workflow and artifact bundle: `references/council-workflow.md`

- - per-reviewer handoff template: `templates/reviewer-brief.md`

- - editor synthesis template: `templates/editor-meta-review.md`

+ The council is defined in local files:

+ - role roster and activation rules: [references/reviewer-roles.md](references/reviewer-roles.md)

+ - stage flow and artifact bundle: [references/council-workflow.md](references/council-workflow.md)

+ - per-reviewer brief: [templates/reviewer-brief.md](templates/reviewer-brief.md)

+ - editor synthesis: [templates/editor-meta-review.md](templates/editor-meta-review.md)

+ - bundle contract: [schemas/review-bundle.schema.json](schemas/review-bundle.schema.json)

## Instructions

- 1. Confirm the review context: manuscript or revision stage, target venue if known, desired decision scale, and whether the user wants a full review, triage, version comparison, or rebuttal assessment.

- 2. Gather the review packet before delegating:

- - manuscript text or accessible PDF/DOCX

- - title, abstract, main claims, methods snapshot, and figure or table list

- - user priorities such as novelty, rigor, statistics, reproducibility, or journal fit

- - prior reviews or author response if this is a revision

- 3. Normalize the manuscript into a shared packet for every reviewer. At minimum, preserve section boundaries, figure references, and the claims being evaluated. If the source is a PDF or DOCX, extract a sectioned text view before review. Use `references/council-workflow.md` for the packet contents.

- 4. Load the local council definition before delegating:

- - reviewer roles and activation rules: `references/reviewer-roles.md`

- - stage flow and artifact bundle: `references/council-workflow.md`

- - reviewer prompt skeleton: `templates/reviewer-brief.md`

- - editor synthesis skeleton: `templates/editor-meta-review.md`

- 5. Use the platform's native delegation primitive when available:

- - Codex: spawn specialist sub-agents or workers

- - Claude Code: spawn Task agents or equivalent delegated runs

- - If delegation is unavailable, emulate the same reviewer roles sequentially and keep outputs role-separated

- 6. Launch these three default reviewers in parallel:

- - Domain reviewer: novelty, significance, positioning against prior work, and overclaiming

- - Methods and statistics reviewer: design, controls, benchmarks, sample size, figure interpretation, and analysis validity

- - Skeptical reviewer: weakest links, alternate explanations, unsupported causal claims, and missing controls

- 7. Add support reviewers only when triggered by the manuscript:

- - Reproducibility reviewer for computational papers, code or data availability, workflow clarity, and parameter transparency

- - Ethics or compliance reviewer for human subjects, animal work, privacy, conflicts, dual-use, or citation bias concerns

- - Translational reviewer when the manuscript makes clinical, ecological, or deployment claims that need reality checks

- 8. Give every reviewer the same structured contract:

- - one-paragraph summary

- - top strengths

- - major concerns

- - minor concerns

- - must-fix experiments or analyses

- - confidence level

- - provisional recommendation: `accept`, `minor_revision`, `major_revision`, or `reject`

- - direct grounding in manuscript sections, figures, tables, or explicit missing information

- 9. Require reviewers to ground criticisms in the manuscript text or in clearly missing information. Do not invent citations, datasets, reviewer expectations, or unstated experiments.

- 10. Run a cross-review pass after the first round:

- - compare disagreements

- - merge duplicate concerns

- - identify the few issues that actually drive the decision

- - separate fatal flaws from fixable revision items

- 11. Capture a lightweight artifact bundle even if the user only asked for prose:

- - shared review packet

- - reviewer reports

- - disagreement or conflict notes

- - editor meta-review

- - validate deterministic paths and machine-readable issues against `schemas/review-bundle.schema.json` with `skills/manuscript-review-council/scripts/validate_review_bundle.py`

- - every `source_roles` entry must name a reviewer present in `reviewer_reports`: an issue is attributable or it is not an issue

- - running fewer than the three default reviewers requires a `reduced_council_reason` on the bundle

- 12. Write an editor meta-review that includes:

- - headline recommendation

- - rationale across novelty, rigor, evidence strength, clarity, reproducibility, and significance

- - ranked major revisions

- - ranked minor revisions

- - questions for the authors

- - a short decision letter or reviewer summary

- 13. If outside validation is needed, do targeted spot-checks instead of broad literature review:

- - use `/polars-dovmed` for claim-specific literature context

- - use `/bio-logic` for evidence-strength and causal-claim stress tests

- - never fabricate supporting papers

- 14. If the user wants polished review prose, a rebuttal outline, or a cleaned-up decision letter, use `/scientific-writing` after the council establishes the factual review skeleton.

- - Requests to rewrite manuscript prose or draft an author rebuttal/response letter route directly to `/scientific-writing`; do not start a council unless the user also asks for scientific critique or resolution assessment.

- 15. Preserve provenance in the final deliverable:

- - keep per-reviewer notes separate from the editor synthesis

- - point to sections, figures, or tables when possible

- - clearly mark inference versus explicit manuscript statement

+ 1. Confirm the review context: manuscript or revision stage, target venue if known, decision scale, and whether the user wants a full review, triage, version comparison, or rebuttal assessment. Requests to rewrite manuscript prose or draft a rebuttal go to `/scientific-writing`; start a council only when the user also wants scientific critique or a resolution assessment.

+ 2. Gather the review packet: manuscript text (convert a PDF or DOCX to sectioned text first, for example with `/pdf-to-md`), title, abstract, main claims, methods snapshot, figure and table list, user priorities, and prior reviews or author response for a revision. Every reviewer gets the same packet; keep section boundaries, figure references, and the claims under test.

+ 3. Read the council files above before delegating.

+ 4. Delegate with the platform's native primitive (Codex sub-agents, Claude Code Task agents). If delegation is unavailable, run the same roles in sequence and keep their outputs separate.

+ 5. Launch the three default reviewers in parallel:

+ - `domain`: novelty, significance, positioning against prior work, and overclaiming

+ - `methods-statistics`: design, controls, benchmarks, sample size, figure interpretation, and analysis validity

+ - `skeptic`: weakest links, alternative explanations, unsupported causal claims, results explained by unchecked causes, and missing controls

+ 6. Add support reviewers only when the manuscript calls for them:

+ - `reproducibility`: computational papers, code or data availability, workflow clarity, and parameter transparency

+ - `ethics-compliance`: human subjects, animal work, privacy, conflicts, dual use, or citation bias

+ - `translational`: clinical, ecological, or deployment claims that need a reality check

+ 7. Every reviewer returns the contract in `templates/reviewer-brief.md`: summary, strengths, major concerns, minor concerns, must-fix analyses, confidence (0 to 1), and a provisional recommendation (`accept`, `minor_revision`, `major_revision`, or `reject`), each concern anchored to a section, figure, table, or explicitly missing information. Reviewers do not invent citations, datasets, reviewer expectations, or experiments the manuscript does not motivate.

+ 8. Run a cross-review pass: compare disagreements, merge duplicate concerns, find the few issues that drive the decision, and separate fatal flaws from fixable items.

+ 9. Save the artifact bundle even when the user asked only for prose, under `reviews/<manuscript-slug>/<YYYYMMDDTHHMMSSZ>/` as described in `references/council-workflow.md`, and validate the bundle index:

+ ```bash

+ uv run --script "$HOME/.agents/skills/manuscript-review-council/scripts/validate_review_bundle.py" bundle.json

+ ```

+ The validator rejects non-deterministic paths, duplicate roles or issue IDs, an issue whose `source_roles` names a reviewer absent from `reviewer_reports`, and a council without all three default reviewers unless `reduced_council_reason` explains why.

+ 10. Write the editor meta-review with `templates/editor-meta-review.md`: recommendation, rationale across novelty, rigor, evidence strength, clarity, reproducibility, and significance, ranked major and minor revisions, questions for the authors, and a short decision letter.

+ 11. For outside validation, run targeted spot-checks, not a broad literature review: `/polars-dovmed` for claim-specific literature and `/bio-logic` for evidence strength and causal claims. Never fabricate supporting papers.

+ 12. For polished review prose or a cleaned-up decision letter, use `/scientific-writing` after the council has fixed the factual review content.

+ 13. Preserve provenance: keep per-reviewer notes separate from the editor synthesis, point to sections, figures, or tables, and mark inference apart from what the manuscript states.

## Quick Reference

| Task | Action |

|------|--------|

| Full manuscript review | Run the 3-reviewer council plus editor synthesis |

| Computational manuscript | Add a reproducibility reviewer |

| Human, animal, or clinical manuscript | Add an ethics or compliance reviewer |

| Revision assessment | Compare prior critiques to the new draft and label each issue resolved, partial, or unresolved |

| Fast triage | Use `domain` plus `skeptic`, set `reduced_council_reason`, then write a short editor recommendation |

| Rebuttal check | Judge whether the author response closes the decision-driving issues |

- | Reviewer definitions | Read `references/reviewer-roles.md` |

- | Stage flow and artifacts | Read `references/council-workflow.md` |

## Input Requirements

- Manuscript text or an accessible PDF/DOCX

- Optional journal rubric, scorecard, or decision scale

- Optional prior reviews, decision letter, rebuttal, or previous manuscript version

- Optional focus areas such as novelty, methods, statistics, reproducibility, or clarity

## Output

- Role-separated reviewer notes

- A short disagreement or adjudication log

- An editor meta-review with a clear recommendation

- A prioritized major and minor revision list

- Specific questions for the authors

- Optional decision letter, rebuttal assessment, or version-delta summary

- - Artifact contract: [schemas/review-bundle.schema.json](schemas/review-bundle.schema.json)

+ - A validated review bundle under `reviews/<manuscript-slug>/<run-id>/`

## Quality Gates

- [ ] At least three distinct reviewer roles are used, or the reduced scope is justified explicitly

- [ ] Reviewer outputs stay role-separated until synthesis

- [ ] Major concerns are grounded in manuscript text or explicit missing information

- [ ] Reviewer disagreements are adjudicated explicitly instead of silently averaged

- [ ] The final recommendation matches the ranked issues

- [ ] No citations, datasets, experiments, or venue rules are invented

- [ ] Reproducibility and ethics checks are added when the manuscript warrants them

- - [ ] Artifacts use `reviews/<manuscript-slug>/<UTC-run-id>/...`, issue records validate against the bundled schema, and prose editing/rebuttal drafting remains outside the council route.

+ - [ ] Artifacts use `reviews/<manuscript-slug>/<UTC-run-id>/...` and the bundle passes `validate_review_bundle.py`

+ - [ ] Prose editing and rebuttal drafting stay with `/scientific-writing`

## Examples

### Example 1: Full journal-style review

```text

Review this microbiome manuscript with a multi-agent council. Use domain,

methods/statistics, skeptic, and reproducibility reviewers. End with an editor

meta-review, a recommendation, and ranked major/minor revisions.

```

### Example 2: Revision comparison

```text

Compare this revised manuscript against the prior decision letter. Tell me

which major issues are resolved, partially resolved, or still open, then write

an editor recommendation.

```

### Example 3: Fast triage

```text

Give me a fast desk-review style assessment of this preprint. Use only a domain

reviewer and a skeptic, record the reduced council on the bundle, then summarize

whether it is promising, immature, or fatally flawed.

```

## Troubleshooting

**Issue**: The manuscript is too long for every reviewer to read in full.

**Solution**: Build a shared review packet first, then route only the relevant sections, claims, and figures to each reviewer while keeping a common abstract and methods snapshot.

**Issue**: Reviewers disagree sharply.

**Solution**: Make the disagreement explicit, identify the evidence each reviewer is using, and let the editor resolve the conflict instead of averaging positions.

**Issue**: No journal rubric or venue is provided.

**Solution**: State the default criteria being applied: novelty, rigor, evidence strength, clarity, reproducibility, and significance.

**Issue**: Only one agent can run.

**Solution**: Emulate the council sequentially with role-scoped passes and keep the notes separated until the editor synthesis step.

## Related Skills

- - `/scientific-writing` — apply the reviewer feedback to the manuscript

- - `/bio-logic` — deeper reasoning about evidence strength

- - `/ai-scientist-evaluator` — equivalent pipeline for AI scientist outputs

+ - `/scientific-writing`: apply the reviewer feedback to the manuscript

+ - `/bio-logic`: deeper reasoning about evidence strength

+ - `/ai-scientist-evaluator`: equivalent review for AI scientist outputs