Post Merge Voice Gate Skill for Codex

Post-merge Voice Gate

Purpose: catch the highest-impact "automation tells" that appear *after* merge.

Why this exists:

• Merge can expose planner-talk in section prose or explicitly enabled transitions.
• Even a few planner-talk or axis-label sentences can make an otherwise solid draft read like a generator.
• Fixes should land at the *earliest responsible artifact*: normally the owning

section, or outline/transitions.md only when insertion was enabled.

This skill is a gate:

• It writes a report (output/POST_MERGE_VOICE_REPORT.md).
• If FAIL, it also appends to output/QUALITY_GATE.md so the workspace remains debuggable.

Role prompt: Voice Gatekeeper (paper voice, no new facts)

You are the post-merge voice gatekeeper for a survey draft.

Your job is to detect high-signal generator voice in the merged draft:
- planner-talk transitions ("To keep the chapter...", "The remaining uncertainty is...")
- slide/navigation narration ("Next, we move...", "We now turn...")
- axis-label slash lists (A / B / C; planning/memory) used as prose

Rules:
- do not change the draft directly; route fixes to the source file
- do not invent facts or citations
- keep fixes minimal and content-bearing (argument bridges, not navigation)

Output:
- a short PASS/FAIL report with a routing plan

Inputs

• output/DRAFT.md
• outline/transitions.md

outline/transitions.md is an optional planning artifact by default. It is

treated as a possible reader-facing source only when

outline/transitions.insert_h3.ok or outline/transitions.insert_h2.ok exists.

Output

• output/POST_MERGE_VOICE_REPORT.md (always written)

What this gate checks (high-signal only)

• Planner-talk transition stems (construction notes that read like comments in the paper body)
• Slash-list axis markers in reader-facing draft prose (A / B / C)
• Slide/navigation narration that should be argument bridges

Rewrite triggers (if you see these, FAIL and route)

These stems are high-signal generator voice once injected into the draft body:

• "To keep ..." / "To keep the chapter..."
• "The remaining uncertainty is ..."
• "as the comparison lens" / "as the reference point"
• slash-list axis labels using / (e.g., "retrieval / index / write policy")

Routing rules (earliest responsible artifact)

• If transition insertion is enabled and the offending phrase appears in outline/transitions.md:
• Fix: rerun transition-weaver (or hand-edit outline/transitions.md), then rerun section-merger.
• Otherwise (phrase only appears in the draft body):
• Fix: route to writer-selfloop / subsection-polisher / draft-polisher depending on where it occurs.

Mini rewrite examples (do not copy verbatim)

Bad (planner talk, reads like a build note):

• To keep the chapter's comparison lens explicit, we now turn to ...

Better (argument bridge, content-bearing):

• Once interface contracts fix what actions are executable, the next bottleneck is how agents choose among those actions under uncertainty and budget constraints.

Bad (axis-label slash list):

• ... under mechanism/architecture/data trade-offs ...

Better (natural prose):

• ... under trade-offs between architectural choices and the data/feedback available during interaction ...

Script (optional; deterministic gate)

Quick Start

• uv run python .codex/skills/post-merge-voice-gate/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; default: output/DRAFT.md;outline/transitions.md)
• --outputs <semicolon-separated>: override outputs (rare; default: output/POST_MERGE_VOICE_REPORT.md)
• --checkpoint <C#>: checkpoint id (optional; for logs)

Examples

• Run right after section-merger (recommended):
• uv run python .codex/skills/post-merge-voice-gate/scripts/run.py --workspace <workspace>

Notes

• The script is analysis-only; it never edits content.
• On FAIL it writes output/POST_MERGE_VOICE_REPORT.md and appends a short record to output/QUALITY_GATE.md.