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nature-writing

yuan1z0825/nature-skills

Draft and structure Nature-style scientific manuscripts from raw claims, results, and notes.

What is nature-writing?

This skill helps you write or rebuild academic manuscript sections—abstracts, introductions, methods, experiments, discussions, and more—in Nature journal style. Use it when you need to draft from scratch, restructure existing material, or plan a manuscript argument, rather than just polish finished prose. It works with English or Chinese input and adapts to different paper types and journals.

  • Draft manuscript sections (abstract, intro, methods, experiments, discussion, conclusion, title) from raw claims and evidence
  • Restructure and reorganize existing manuscript material into journal-appropriate argument chains
  • Detect paper type (research, methods, hypothesis, algorithmic, review) and apply matching drafting workflows
  • Support multiple languages: detect Chinese input and apply language-specific rules
  • Load journal-specific style guidance (Nature, Nature Communications, or generic)
  • Follow an 8-step planning and drafting workflow that prioritizes argument clarity before prose

How to install nature-writing

npx skills add https://github.com/yuan1z0825/nature-skills --skill nature-writing
Claude Code
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Windsurf
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How to use nature-writing

  1. 1.Provide your raw material: claims, experimental results, figures, notes, or a Chinese draft
  2. 2.Specify the section(s) you want to draft (abstract, intro, methods, etc.) or ask for a full manuscript plan
  3. 3.State your paper type if known (research, methods, hypothesis, algorithmic, or review); otherwise the skill defaults to research
  4. 4.Let the skill detect your language and journal preference, then confirm or correct the detected axes
  5. 5.Follow the skill's 8-step workflow: it will surface missing evidence or boundaries before drafting, write a one-sentence argument, then build the full section

Use cases

Good for
  • Writing a research paper from scratch with raw experimental results and notes
  • Restructuring an introduction or methods section that lacks clear logical flow
  • Drafting an abstract that captures the core contribution for a Nature submission
  • Converting a Chinese manuscript draft into English-appropriate academic prose
  • Planning the argument structure of a discussion section before writing full paragraphs
Who it's for
  • Researchers and academics writing papers for Nature or similar journals
  • Scientists transitioning from Chinese to English academic writing
  • Authors restructuring manuscripts after reviewer feedback
  • Researchers planning manuscript strategy before drafting prose

nature-writing FAQ

Should I provide a finished draft for polishing, or raw notes?

Provide raw material: claims, results, figures, notes, or rough drafts. This skill is designed to draft and structure from scratch or rebuild sections, not to polish finished prose. For polishing, use the nature-polishing skill instead.

What if my manuscript doesn't target Nature—can I still use this?

Yes. The skill detects journal preference (Nature, Nature Communications, or generic) and defaults to generic. It works for any academic manuscript, including general research papers, methods papers, and reviews.

Can I use this with Chinese input?

Yes. The skill detects Chinese in your notes and applies language-specific rules to help translate and structure your argument into English-appropriate academic prose.

What if I'm missing key evidence or experimental results?

The skill will surface missing inputs and write placeholders instead of inventing content. It lists assumptions and gaps under 'Assumptions or missing inputs:' so you can fill them in later.

Do I need to follow the detected paper type and section, or can I override?

The skill will state its detected axes (paper type, section, language, journal) in one line and ask you to correct them if needed. You can override any detection before drafting begins.

Full instructions (SKILL.md)

Source of truth, from yuan1z0825/nature-skills.


name: nature-writing description: Draft, restructure, or plan Nature-style manuscript sections from author-provided claims, results, figures, notes, or Chinese drafts. Use when the user wants to write or rebuild an abstract, introduction, related-work, method, experiments, discussion, conclusion, title, or full manuscript argument rather than only polish finished prose. Also trigger on general academic-writing requests even without the word "Nature", such as writing a paper from scratch, drafting a manuscript/section, structuring a paper, and Chinese phrasings like 学术写作、科研写作、论文写作、写论文、写paper、SCI写作、帮我写论文、搭论文框架、起草论文、写引言/摘要/讨论. version: 1.0.0 author: Community contribution, refactored into static/dynamic layers

Nature-Style Scientific Writing — Router

This skill is split into two layers:

  • A static layer under static/ that holds versioned, reusable content fragments (core stance + workflow, paper-type playbooks, per-section drafting guidance, language-specific rules, per-journal style).
  • A dynamic layer (this file plus manifest.yaml) that detects the request's axes and loads only the fragments needed for the current job.

Do not try to apply the drafting logic from memory or from this router. Always load fragments from disk as described below.

Routing protocol

Follow these five steps every time the skill is invoked.

1. Load the manifest and the core layer

Read 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, writing workflow, and output format that apply to every drafting 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 / related-work / method / experiments / discussion / conclusion / title. May be multiple. Ask the user if it is ambiguous and matters for the draft.
  • language — en or zh-to-en. Detect from the user's notes themselves.
  • journal — nature / nat-comms / generic. Default: generic. If the user names a Nature subjournal, treat it as nature.

State the detected axis values in one short line to the user before drafting, so they can correct you cheaply.

3. Load the matching fragments

For each axis value, Read the file mapped in the manifest. Skip the section axis only when the user has explicitly asked for a free-floating argument paragraph with no section context.

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

4. Draft using the loaded material

Apply the loaded fragments in this priority order:

  1. Core stance + intake (core/stance.md) — surface missing claim / evidence / boundary before drafting.
  2. Paper-type playbook — argument chain, drafting order.
  3. Section-specific drafting rules and structure.
  4. Journal-specific framing and constraints.
  5. Language-specific sentence and paragraph rules (apply last).

Run the 8-step workflow in core/workflow.md end-to-end. Do not skip steps 1-3 (planning) just because the user asked for prose immediately — write the one-sentence argument first.

If essential evidence or boundary is missing, write a placeholder and list it under Assumptions or missing inputs: instead of inventing content.

5. Reach for references only when needed

The files under references/ are deep references and the example library, not defaults. Open them on demand per the references.on_demand table in the manifest. Typical triggers:

  • The user asks for a concrete example or template → references/examples/index.md.
  • A section's draft has structural problems that the section fragment alone does not explain → the matching references/<section>.md.
  • The user needs a broad-audience Nature abstract opening or asks about a summary paragraphreferences/nature-summary-paragraph.md.
  • The user asks "does this paragraph flow?" → references/paragraph-flow.md.
  • The user asks for a self-review or rejection-risk audit → references/paper-review.md.

Why this split

  • The static layer is versioned and reviewable. Adding a new journal style, paper type, or section is one new file plus one manifest line.
  • The dynamic layer keeps each invocation cheap: only the fragments relevant to this draft enter context, instead of the full multi-thousand-line reference set.
  • The router itself is short on purpose. Update fragments, not this file, when adding scope.
  • This structure mirrors nature-polishing so shared content can later be lifted into a _shared/ layer used by both skills.