Publication Figures and Tables

Make generated figures publication-grade and on-system by default. Every figure you produce with matplotlib must use the bundled Open Science style, so a figure in a report and a stat tile in the app read as one design system. When a paper/survey skill or target venue specifies its own publication palette and physical type scale, that more specific standard overrides this palette; the final-size, collision, and figure-form rules below still apply.

Apply the style (always, before plotting)

The style file openscience.mplstyle sits next to this SKILL.md. Load it by absolute path at the top of any figure script:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from pathlib import Path

# This skill's directory, the style ships beside SKILL.md.
STYLE = Path(__file__).resolve().parent / "openscience.mplstyle" if "__file__" in dir() else None
# In a notebook/agent cell, use the skill's deployed path directly:
plt.style.use(str(STYLE)) if STYLE and STYLE.exists() else plt.style.use("default")

If you cannot resolve the path, set the palette inline (same hexes as below).

Choose a paper-appropriate form

• Use matplotlib/seaborn for quantitative evidence; use a purpose-built TikZ/SVG/PDF schematic for a method or architecture; use scientific image panels only with source, crop, scale, and processing provenance.
• Do not use Mermaid, PlantUML, generic flowchart/mind-map output, diagram-editor screenshots, or notebook/UI screenshots as a final paper figure. They may be scratch aids only. Graphviz is acceptable only when the graph itself is the analysed data, not as a shortcut for a generic process diagram.
• Every figure must make evidence, a mechanism, or an experimental design easier to understand. Decorative roadmaps, funnels, icon collages, and stock process diagrams do not belong in a paper.

The shared palette (single source of truth)