nature-polishing

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---
name: nature-polishing
description: Polish, translate, or tighten existing academic prose while preserving facts, terminology, and evidence boundaries. Use for 论文润色、学术翻译、正文精简, or manuscript LaTeX layout fixes. Use nature-writing when the main task is drafting new sections or rebuilding the manuscript argument.
---

# Nature-Style Academic Polishing — Router

## Routing protocol

For a new polishing task, follow the routing below. For follow-up edits, reuse established task choices and already loaded guidance; read additional fragments only when the requested scope changes.

### 1. Load the manifest and the core layer

Read [manifest.yaml](manifest.yaml). It declares the axes (`paper_type`, `section`, `language`, `journal`), the allowed values, and the file paths each value maps to.

Also read every file listed under `always_load`. These hold the default stance, failure-mode diagnosis, ethics, and output format that apply to every polish job.

### 2. Detect the axis values for this request

For each axis in the manifest, decide the value using the manifest's `detect:` hint and the user's input:

- `paper_type` — research / methods / hypothesis / algorithmic / review. Default: research.
- `section` — abstract / intro / results / discussion / conclusion / title / methods. May be multiple. Ask the user if it is ambiguous and matters for the polish.
- `language` — en or zh-to-en. Detect from the draft itself.
- `journal` — nature / nat-comms / nat-mach-intell / generic. Default:
  generic. Use `nature` only for flagship Nature, `nat-comms` for Nature
  Communications and `nat-mach-intell` for Nature Machine Intelligence (NMI).
  Do not route another Nature Portfolio title through flagship Nature rules.

State the detected axis values in one short line to the user before proceeding, so they can correct you cheaply. This is a progress update, not an approval gate; continue unless a necessary decision remains unresolved.

### 3. Load the matching fragments

For each axis value, Read the file mapped in the manifest. Skip the `section` axis only if the user has supplied free-floating prose with no section context.

Do **not** read every fragment in `static/`. Load only what step 2 selected.

### 4. Polish using the loaded material

Apply the loaded fragments in this priority order, matching the `paper type -> section job -> paragraph logic -> claim/evidence/boundary -> sentence polish` rule from `core/failure-modes.md`:

1. Paper-type playbook (architecture, writing order).
2. Section-specific job and failure modes.
3. Journal-specific framing and constraints.
4. Language-specific sentence and paragraph rules (apply last).
5. Core stance and ethics throughout.

If a paragraph's structural problem cannot be fixed without inventing content, flag it instead of papering over it.

For Results, full-main-text compression, main-versus-SI allocation, or prose
added during revision, load `../nature-shared/core/main-text-discipline.md`
before sentence polishing. Classify each result, retain the shortest sufficient
evidence chain, and require every addition to trigger a deletion or replacement
check across the affected paragraph.

For flagship Nature, Nature Communications, Nature Machine Intelligence, or
another Nature Portfolio title, load the matching shared Nature-style corpus
guidance:

- Results or Discussion →
  `../nature-shared/core/nature-results-discussion.md`
- Introduction or whole-manuscript narrative →
  `../nature-shared/core/nature-introduction.md`
- Abstract → `../nature-shared/core/nature-abstract.md`

Preserve claim escalation, the fast question funnel, Introduction–Results
alignment, discovery-centred abstract compression, evidence-bound local
interpretation, and cross-Results synthesis. These defaults were initially
distilled from published NMI papers; treat them as corpus-derived guidance, not
official policy, and obey the target journal's current rules when they differ.

For any Discussion polish or restructuring job, a