Tech Paper Template

Overview

Before drafting any prose, a technical paper needs a full logical skeleton: the research background, the specific limitations of prior work, the key idea or research goal, the technical challenges that prevent a naive solution, the methodology modules that address each challenge, and the contributions that the paper will claim. This skill fills in that skeleton via a standardised thinking-template table, positions the paper type, and runs four self-consistency checks on the logic chain.

The output is a filled-in thinking template plus a consistency report. It is suitable for advisor-student brainstorming sessions, weekly progress meetings, and the final planning step before writing begins. It does not draft Introduction prose (use intro-drafter for that); it operates at the logical-skeleton layer.

When to use this skill

• Early brainstorming of a paper project.
• Weekly progress meeting with an advisor or collaborator.
• Pre-drafting planning after idea-evaluator returns Strong Accept.
• The paper's logic chain feels incoherent and needs an audit.
• The user asks for 'paper skeleton', 'paper logic chain', 'thinking template', or 'paper-structure planning'.
• The user is unsure whether their paper is Technique or New Problem/Setting.

When NOT to use this skill

• The paper is a benchmark paper. Use benchmark-paper-template (separate plugin).
• The user needs an Introduction-specific paragraph outline. Use intro-drafter (typically run this skill first, then intro-drafter).
• The user has a written draft and wants review feedback. Use pre-submission-reviewer.
• The idea itself is not yet vetted. Use idea-evaluator first.

Core procedure

Step 1: Paper-type positioning

See: references/paper-types.md for the positioning criteria and worked examples.