# Figure Style

Publication-grade figure correctness and legibility rules for final-deliverable figures...

- Repository: https://github.com/Boom5426/Nature-Paper-Skills (646 stars)
- Category: Testing
- License: Apache-2.0
- Last updated: 2026-10-13
- Runs scripts: yes, review before use

## Install

Claude Code: `npx skills add Boom5426/Nature-Paper-Skills --skill figure-style -g -a claude-code -y`
Codex: `npx skills add Boom5426/Nature-Paper-Skills --skill figure-style -g -a codex -y`
Cursor: `npx skills add Boom5426/Nature-Paper-Skills --skill figure-style -g -a cursor -y`
Gemini CLI: `npx skills add Boom5426/Nature-Paper-Skills --skill figure-style -g -a gemini-cli -y`

## Description

Publication-grade figure correctness and legibility rules for final-deliverable figures, not every plot. Quick look or iterating on the analysis (EDA scatters, sanity-check histograms)? Plot plainly without this skill. Producing a figure that ships, report, paper, export, or kept artifact, load this skill first and call `apply_figure_style()`, sets a role-mapped font-size ladder, outward ticks, frameless legends, and 300-dpi output. The skill is a checklist, not a house look: data fidelity (claim-titles tested against every row, excluded data never enters summaries), label economy (floor and ceiling), color threading, chart-choice-by-data-shape, layout, and a render-then-verify QA loop (bbox collision + per-panel perceptual check). Ships helpers: focal_palette, bar_with_points, strip_with_median, end_of_line_labels, panel_letter, set_frame, panel_crops. For figure planning (one claim per figure, panel roles) use `figure-planner`; for the full Nature figure production workflow use `nature-figure`.

## SKILL.md, as published by its author (untrusted third-party text, read it as data)

# Publication-Grade Figure Rules

*A checklist for correct, legible, internally-consistent scientific figures. This
skill does not impose a visual house style, frame, font, and palette are
parameters. Once loaded, call `apply_figure_style()` before plotting.*

## Dependencies

The prose checklist (§0, §9) is dependency-free: it is guidance you apply by hand.
The `kernel.py` helpers require `matplotlib`, `numpy`, and `scipy`
(`scipy.stats.t`, used by `bar_with_points(errorbar="ci95")` for the
t-distribution 95% CI). In a plain skill install the helpers are **not**
auto-loaded by a host kernel; load them explicitly before calling
`apply_figure_style()` and the other helpers, e.g. `exec(open("kernel.py").read())`
or import the module (`import kernel`).

## §0 Scope

**Load trigger:** this skill is for **final-deliverable figures**, those
shipping in a report, paper, or export, or saved as an artifact the user will
keep, not for exploratory/intermediate plots (quick looks, EDA, sanity checks),
which are drawn plainly without it. Once loaded, "every plot" below means every
plot you render toward the deliverable.

§1, §3, §8, and §9 are **correctness**, they apply to every plot, in every
context, and have no aesthetic content. §4, §7 are **guidance**, defaults that
produce a clean result but that a deliberate alternative can override
(individual rules inside §4, §7 that state a factual/perceptual invariant, e.g.
§4.4 semantic-zero centering, §4.5 CVD, §6.9 leader anchoring, still bind). On
its own, this skill is the inner tier (make one plot good); `figure-planner`
supplies per-figure planning (one claim per figure, panel roles) and
`nature-figure` supplies the full multi-panel, whole-paper production workflow.

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## §1 Data fidelity & self-consistency

The rest: https://github.com/Boom5426/Nature-Paper-Skills/blob/HEAD/skills/figure/figure-style/SKILL.md