Draft Polisher Skill for Codex

Draft Polisher (Audit-style editing)

Goal: turn a first-pass draft into readable survey prose without breaking the evidence contract.

This is a local polish pass: de-template + coherence + terminology + redundancy pruning.

Note: if the main issue is structural redundancy from section accumulation, push the change upstream to sections/ and use paragraph-curator before merge. draft-polisher should not be the primary place where you decide which paragraphs to keep.

Role cards (use explicitly)

Style Harmonizer (editor)

Mission: remove generator voice and make prose read like one author wrote it.

Do:

• Delete narration openers and slide navigation; replace with argument bridges.
• Vary rhythm; remove repeated template stems.
• Collapse repeated disclaimers into one front-matter methodology paragraph.

Avoid:

• Adding or removing citation keys.
• Moving citations across subsections.

Evidence Contract Guard (skeptic)

Mission: prevent polishing from inflating claims beyond evidence.

Do:

• Keep quantitative statements scoped (task/metric/constraint) or weaken them.
• Treat missing evidence as a failure signal; route upstream rather than rewriting around gaps.

Avoid:

• Overconfident language when evidence is abstract-only.

Role prompt: Style Harmonizer (editor expert)

You are the style and coherence editor for a technical survey.

Your goal is to make the draft read like one careful author wrote it, without changing the evidence contract.

Hard constraints:
- do not add/remove citation keys
- do not move citations across ### subsections
- do not strengthen claims beyond what existing citations support

High-leverage edits:
- delete generator voice (This subsection..., Next we move..., We now turn...)
- replace navigation with argument bridges (content-bearing handoffs)
- collapse repeated disclaimers into one methodology paragraph in front matter
- keep quantitative statements well-scoped (task/metric/constraint in the same sentence)

Working style:
- rewrite sentences so they carry content, not process
- vary rhythm, but avoid “template stems” repeating across H3s

Inputs

• output/DRAFT.md
• Optional context (read-only; helps avoid “polish drift”):
• outline/outline.yml
• outline/subsection_briefs.jsonl
• outline/evidence_drafts.jsonl
• citations/ref.bib

Outputs

• output/DRAFT.md (in-place refinement)
• output/citation_anchors.prepolish.jsonl (baseline, generated on first run by the script)

Non-negotiables (hard rules)

1) Citation keys are immutable

• Do not add new [@BibKey] keys.
• Do not delete citation markers.
• If citations/ref.bib exists, do not introduce any key that is not defined there.

2) Citation anchoring is immutable

• Do not move citations across ### subsections.
• If you must restructure across subsections, stop and push the change upstream (outline/briefs/evidence), then regenerate.

3) No evidence inflation

• If a sentence sounds stronger than the evidence level (abstract-only), rewrite it into a qualified statement.
• When in doubt, check the subsection’s evidence pack in outline/evidence_drafts.jsonl and keep claims aligned to snippets.

4) Citation shape normalization

• Merge adjacent citation blocks in the same sentence (avoid [@a] [@b]).
• Deduplicate keys inside one block (avoid [@a; @a]).
• Avoid tail-only citation dumps: keep some citations in the claim sentence itself (mid-sentence), not only paragraph end.

5) Quantitative claim hygiene

• If you keep a number, ensure the sentence also states (without guessing): task type + metric definition + relevant constraint (budget/cost/tool access), and the citation is embedded in that sentence.
• Avoid ambiguous model naming (e.g., “GPT-5”) unless the cited paper uses that exact label; otherwise use the paper’s naming or a neutral description.

6) No pipeline voice

• Remove scaffolding phrases like:
• “We use the following working claim …”
• “The main axes we track are …”
• “abstracts are treated as verification targets …”
• “Method note (evidence policy): …” (avoid labels; rewrite as plain survey methodology)
• “this run is …” (rewrite as survey methodology: “This survey is …”)
• “Scope and definitions / Design space / Evaluation practice …”
• “Next, we move from …”
• “We now turn to …”
• “From <X> to <Y>, ...” (title narration; rewrite as an argument bridge)
• “In the next section/subsection …”
• “Therefore/As a result, survey synthesis/comparisons should …” (rewrite as literature-facing observation)
• Also remove generator-like thesis openers that read like outline narration:
• “This subsection surveys …”
• “This subsection argues …”

Three passes (recommended)

Pass 1 — Subsection polish (structure + de-template)

Best-of-2 micro-polish (recommended):

• For any sentence/paragraph you touch, draft 2 candidate rewrites, then keep the better one.
• Choose with a simple rubric: move clarity, no template stem, citations stay anchored, and citation shape stays reader-facing (no adjacent cite blocks / dup keys).
• Do not keep both candidates. Pick one and move on (the goal is convergence, not endless rewriting).

Role split:

• Editor: rewrite sentences for clarity and flow.
• Skeptic: deletes any generic/template sentence.

Targets:

• Each H3 reads like: tension → contrast → evidence → limitation.
• Remove repeated “disclaimer paragraphs”; keep evidence-policy in one place (prefer a single paragraph in Introduction or Related Work phrased as survey methodology, not as pipeline/execution logs).
• Use outline/outline.yml (if present) to avoid heading drift during edits.
• If present, use outline/subsection_briefs.jsonl to keep each H3’s scope/RQ consistent while improving flow.
• Do a quick “pattern sweep” (semantic, not mechanical):
• delete outline narration: This subsection ..., In this subsection ...
• delete slide navigation: Next, we move from ..., We now turn to ..., In the next section ...
• delete title narration: From <X> to <Y>, ...
• replace with: content claims + argument bridges + organization sentences (no new facts/citations)
• If citation-injector was used, smooth any budget-injection sentences so they read paper-like:
• Keep the citation keys unchanged.
• Avoid list-injection stems (e.g., “A few representative references include …”, “Notable lines of work include …”, “Concrete examples ... include ...”).
• Prefer integrating the added citations into an existing argument sentence, or rewrite as a short parenthetical e.g., ... clause tied to the subsection’s lens (no new facts).
• Vary phrasing; avoid repeating the same opener stem across many H3s.
• Tone: keep it calm and academic; remove hype words and repeated opener labels (e.g., literal Key takeaway: across many H3s).
• Reduce repeated synthesis stems (e.g., many paragraphs starting with Taken together, ...); vary synthesis phrasing and keep it content-bearing.
• Treat repeated "Taken together," as a generator-voice smell. If it appears more than twice (or clusters in one chapter), rewrite to vary phrasing and keep each synthesis sentence content-specific.
• Vary synthesis openings: "In summary," "Across these studies," "The pattern that emerges," "A key insight," "Collectively," "The evidence suggests," or directly state the conclusion without a synthesis marker.
• Each synthesis opening should be content-specific, not a template label.

Rewrite recipe for subsection openers (paper voice, no new facts):

• Delete: This subsection surveys/argues... / In this subsection, we...
• Replace with a compact opener that does 2–3 of these (no labels; vary across subsections):
• Content claim: the subsection-specific tension/trade-off (optionally with 1–2 embedded citations)
• Why it matters: link the claim to evaluation/engineering constraints (benchmark/protocol/cost/tool access)
• Preview: what you will contrast next and on what lens (A vs B; then evaluation anchors; then limitations)
• Example skeletons (paraphrase; don’t reuse verbatim):
• Tension-first: A central tension is ...; ...; we contrast ...
• Decision-first: For builders, the crux is ...; ...
• Lens-first: Seen through the lens of ..., ...

Pass 2 — Terminology normalization

Role split:

• Taxonomist: chooses canonical terms and synonym policy.
• Integrator: applies consistent replacements across the draft.

Targets:

• One concept = one name across sections.
• Headings, tables, and prose use the same canonical terms.

Pass 3 — Redundancy pruning (global repetition)

Role split:

• Compressor: collapses repeated boilerplate.
• Narrative keeper: ensures removing repetition does not break the argument chain.

Targets:

• Cross-section repeated intros/outros are removed.
• Only subsection-specific content remains inside subsections.

Script

Quick Start

• uv run python .codex/skills/draft-polisher/scripts/run.py --help
• uv run python .codex/skills/draft-polisher/scripts/run.py --workspace <workspace>

All Options

• --workspace <dir>: workspace root
• --unit-id <U###>: unit id (optional; for logs)
• --inputs <semicolon-separated>: override inputs (rare; prefer defaults)
• --outputs <semicolon-separated>: override outputs (rare; prefer defaults)
• --checkpoint <C#>: checkpoint id (optional; for logs)

Examples

• First polish pass (creates anchoring baseline output/citation_anchors.prepolish.jsonl):
• uv run python .codex/skills/draft-polisher/scripts/run.py --workspace <workspace>

• Reset the anchoring baseline (only if you intentionally accept citation drift):
• Delete output/citation_anchors.prepolish.jsonl, then rerun the polisher.

Acceptance checklist

• [ ] No TODO/TBD/FIXME/(placeholder).
• [ ] No … or ... truncation.
• [ ] No repeated boilerplate sentence across many subsections.
• [ ] Citation anchoring passes (no cross-subsection drift).
• [ ] Each H3 has at least one cross-paper synthesis paragraph (>=2 citations).

Troubleshooting

Issue: polishing causes citation drift across subsections

Fix:

• Keep citations inside the same ### subsection; if restructuring is intentional, delete output/citation_anchors.prepolish.jsonl and regenerate a new baseline.

Issue: draft polishing is requested before writing approval

Fix:

• Record the relevant approval in DECISIONS.md (typically Approve C2) before doing prose-level edits.