Outline Budgeter Agent Skill

Outline Budgeter (NO PROSE)

Purpose: prevent the most common survey failure mode: H3 explosion (too many tiny subsections) leading to a thin, outline-like PDF.

This skill rewrites outline/outline.yml into a paper-like budget:

• Final ToC target: ~6–8 H2 sections (Intro / Related Work + 3–4 core chapters + Discussion + Conclusion)
• H3 target: fewer, thicker subsections (per draft_profile: course_paper<=6, survey<=10, deep<=12)

Important: Discussion/Conclusion are appended in C5 merge (global sections), so the *outline itself* should usually be <=6 H2.

Inputs

• outline/outline.yml
• Optional (helps make merges evidence-aware):
• queries.md (optional: if it sets draft_profile, use it to choose the H3 budget)
• outline/mapping.tsv
• outline/coverage_report.md
• GOAL.md

Outputs

• outline/outline.yml (updated in place)
• outline/OUTLINE_BUDGET_REPORT.md (bullets-only; what was merged and why)

Workflow (NO PROSE)

1) Read the outline and compute a simple budget snapshot:

• If queries.md sets draft_profile (course_paper/survey/deep), use it to decide the H3 budget target.
• H2 count (excluding Discussion/Conclusion, which are not in the outline)
• Total H3 count
• H3 count per H2 chapter

2) Decide a merge plan (structure-first, evidence-aware):

• Prefer merging *adjacent* H3s that share similar axes/keywords.
• Prefer merging H3s with weak mapping coverage (if mapping.tsv exists).
• If outline/coverage_report.md exists (from outline-refiner), use it to identify weak-coverage or high-reuse subsections to merge.
• Use GOAL.md as the scope constraint: avoid merges that mix distinct research questions or scope boundaries.
• Prefer moving fine-grained distinctions into bullets/axes instead of creating new subsections.

3) Apply merges in outline/outline.yml:

• Merge titles into a clearer, thicker subsection title.
• Merge bullets (dedupe templates; keep Stage A fields: Intent/RQ/Evidence needs/Expected cites).
• Keep ids stable when possible.
• If you must change ids, record it explicitly in the report and assume mapping.tsv must be regenerated.

4) Write outline/OUTLINE_BUDGET_REPORT.md:

• Before/after counts.
• List of merges (old ids/titles -> new id/title).
• Any risks (e.g., mapping reset required).

Quality checklist

• [ ] No placeholders (TODO/…/(placeholder)).
• [ ] Outline budget matches the paper-like target.
• [ ] Each remaining H3 is thick enough to sustain evidence-first writing (its bullets mention concrete comparisons + eval anchors + failure modes).

Troubleshooting

Issue: merging makes a subsection too broad

Fix:

• Keep one H3, but split its bullets into explicit comparison axes and required evidence fields; defer fine-grained splits to later if evidence is strong enough.

Issue: mapping breaks after id changes

Fix:

• Rerun section-mapper to regenerate outline/mapping.tsv, then rerun outline-refiner.