Resilient Document Generation Workflow

When to Use

Use this skill when document generation tasks encounter errors or when you need reliable multi-format output:

• shell_agent returns unknown or unclear errors on document generation
• Generating documents in multiple formats (e.g., .docx, .pdf, .html)
• PDF generation fails due to LaTeX encoding or missing dependencies
• You need to handle special characters, symbols, or non-ASCII text safely
• Previous document generation attempts have failed

Core Technique

Instead of delegating the entire document generation to shell_agent, manually split the workflow into discrete, observable steps with built-in fallbacks:

1. Tool availability check → Verify pandoc and PDF engines are available
2. Content creation → Use write_file to create source document (Markdown)
3. Unicode assessment → Determine if sanitization is needed based on target format
4. Format conversion → Try primary method, fall back to alternatives on failure
5. Verification → Check output files exist and are valid

⚠️ Format-Specific Unicode Guidance

Critical: Different formats handle Unicode differently. Plan accordingly:

Format	Unicode Support	Sanitization Needed?	Recommended Engine
.docx	Excellent	No	pandoc (default)
.html	Excellent	No	pandoc (default)
.pdf (pdflatex)	Limited	Yes	pandoc + sanitization
.pdf (xelatex)	Good	Rarely	pandoc --pdf-engine=xelatex
.pdf (wkhtmltopdf)	Good	Rarely	pandoc --pdf-engine=wkhtmltopdf
.pdf (Python)	Excellent	No	fpdf2 or reportlab

Step-by-Step Workflow

Step 0: Check Tool Availability

Before starting, verify which tools are available:

run_shell
command: which pandoc && echo "PANDOC: OK" || echo "PANDOC: MISSING"