/render-html: Markdown → single-file HTML for human reading

Markdown is for writers. HTML is for readers. ARIS workflow nodes write Markdown (canonical, audit-trail-friendly, machine-parseable). /render-html turns selected artifacts into a polished single-file HTML view for the human who actually has to read them. The Markdown stays the source of truth.

When to use this skill

Use /render-html for ARIS artifacts that have a real human reader:

Do NOT use for:

• LaTeX paper output — the final reader-facing artifact is PDF, not HTML.
• SKILL.md files — those are internal LLM-facing protocol.
• .aris/traces/* review traces — forensic debug, not human display.
• Every Markdown file in your project — only artifacts that benefit from sticky TOC, callouts, math, or score progressions.

Core invariants

• MD / JSON is canonical, HTML is generated view. Edit the source, then re-render. Do not hand-edit the HTML.
• Cross-model review at the artifact boundary (ARIS invariant). Academic-template HTML — used for the artifacts humans actually read (IDEA_REPORT, AUTO_REVIEW, KILL_ARGUMENT, PAPER_PLAN) — is reviewed by a fresh cross-family Codex thread before being claimed as a finished view. Dashboard-template HTML (cockpit / debug views) skips review by default but accepts --review to force it. See § HTML Review Gate below.
• Drift detection. Every rendered HTML embeds the source path, SHA256, and generation timestamp in <meta> tags AND in the visible page header. If the HTML and source diverge, the meta tells you which version of the source produced it.
• Single-file output. No build system, no separate CSS, no node_modules. Just one .html.
• CDN-friendly default, --offline fallback. MathJax 3 and highlight.js load from cdn.jsdelivr.net by default. Pass --offline to skip both — math will appear as raw $x$, code blocks won't get syntax highlighting, but everything stays readable.
• Pure stdlib helper. render_html.py uses only re, html, hashlib, json, datetime, pathlib, argparse, sys. No pip install required.
• Defense-in-depth XSS sanitization. The helper strips <script>/<style>/<iframe>/<object>/<embed>/<form>/<input>/<button>/<link>/<meta>/<base> tags, all on* event-handler attributes (onclick, onload, …), and rewrites javascript:/vbscript:/data: href/src/action schemes to #blocked-unsafe-url:. ARIS workflow artifacts should not contain these in the first place, but the sanitizer is the safety net in case an LLM hallucinates one. Markdown text content is HTML-escaped separately and never reaches the sanitizer.

Tool Location

Arch C self-contained: the canonical implementation lives at skills/render-html/scripts/render_html.py (this SKILL's own scripts/ subdirectory), together with its templates at skills/render-html/scripts/templates/{academic,dashboard}.html. The helper is new — no legacy tools/ shim exists.

Resolve $RENDER_HTML with the Codex hybrid chain (managed project install, in-repo checkout, ARIS repo fallback, then copied global Codex skill install). This is Policy A — skill-local gate:

RENDER_HTML=""
cd "$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null || pwd)" || exit 1
if [ -z "${ARIS_REPO:-}" ] && [ -f .aris/installed-skills-codex.txt ]; then
    ARIS_REPO=$(awk -F'\t' '$1=="repo_root"{print $2; exit}' .aris/installed-skills-codex.txt 2>/dev/null) || true
fi
[ -f ".agents/skills/render-html/scripts/render_html.py" ] && RENDER_HTML=".agents/skills/render-html/scripts/render_html.py"
[ -z "$RENDER_HTML" ] && [ -f "skills/render-html/scripts/render_html.py" ] && RENDER_HTML="skills/render-html/scripts/render_html.py"
[ -z "$RENDER_HTML" ] && [ -n "${ARIS_REPO:-}" ] && [ -f "$ARIS_REPO/skills/render-html/scripts/render_html.py" ] && RENDER_HTML="$ARIS_REPO/skills/render-html/scripts/render_html.py"
[ -z "$RENDER_HTML" ] && [ -f ~/.codex/skills/render-html/scripts/render_html.py ] && RENDER_HTML="$HOME/.codex/skills/render-html/scripts/render_html.py"
[ -z "$RENDER_HTML" ] && {
  echo "ERROR: render_html.py not resolved at .agents/skills/render-html/scripts/, skills/render-html/scripts/, \$ARIS_REPO/skills/render-html/scripts/, or ~/.codex/skills/render-html/scripts/." >&2
  echo "       /render-html cannot produce HTML output. Fix: rerun install_aris_codex.sh, export ARIS_REPO, or copy the render-html skill into ~/.codex/skills/." >&2
  exit 1
}

Invocation

# Default: academic template, output to <input>.html alongside source
python3 "$RENDER_HTML" idea-stage/IDEA_REPORT.md

# Dashboard template for cockpit-style views
python3 "$RENDER_HTML" research-wiki/SUMMARY.md --template dashboard

# Custom output path + title + eyebrow
python3 "$RENDER_HTML" review-stage/AUTO_REVIEW.md \
  --out review-stage/AUTO_REVIEW.html \
  --title "Auto Review — overnight run" \
  --eyebrow "Workflow 2"

# Embed sidecar state JSON (rendered as a folded <details> JSON block at end)
python3 "$RENDER_HTML" review-stage/AUTO_REVIEW.md \
  --state review-stage/REVIEW_STATE.json

# Embed sidecar JSON (e.g., for KILL_ARGUMENT.md + KILL_ARGUMENT.json)
python3 "$RENDER_HTML" paper/KILL_ARGUMENT.md \
  --json paper/KILL_ARGUMENT.json \
  --title "Kill Argument — adversarial review"

# Offline (no CDN; math + code render as plain text)
python3 "$RENDER_HTML" idea-stage/IDEA_REPORT.md --offline

# JSON-only input (wrapped in a <pre><code class="language-json"> block)
python3 "$RENDER_HTML" review-stage/REVIEW_STATE.json --template dashboard

# Language attr (default zh-CN; set for English-primary artifacts)
python3 "$RENDER_HTML" docs/SKILLS_CATALOG.md --lang en

# Skip review (academic template otherwise reviews by default)
python3 "$RENDER_HTML" idea-stage/IDEA_REPORT.md
# … then the skill skips the spawn_agent review step if --no-review
# was on the command line. Pass --review to a dashboard render to force it.

The --review / --no-review flags are parsed by the SKILL orchestrator (Claude Code), not by render_html.py. The helper itself stays pure stdlib and never calls MCP. See § HTML Review Gate below for the exact resolution and prompt.

Workflow

Step 1: Identify the artifact

From $ARGUMENTS, determine what to render. Common patterns:

• "render IDEA_REPORT" → idea-stage/IDEA_REPORT.md, academic template
• "make AUTO_REVIEW readable" → review-stage/AUTO_REVIEW.md + --state review-stage/REVIEW_STATE.json
• "show the kill argument as HTML" → paper/KILL_ARGUMENT.md + --json paper/KILL_ARGUMENT.json
• "research-wiki dashboard" → look for research-wiki/SUMMARY.md or generate from raw entity counts (Phase 2 work; for Phase 1 just render SUMMARY.md if present, else fall back to listing top-level wiki structure)

Step 2: Pick template

• academic (default): linear long-form. Sticky TOC sidebar + serif body + callouts + tables + math + Q&A <details>. Use for IDEA_REPORT, AUTO_REVIEW, KILL_ARGUMENT, PAPER_PLAN.
• dashboard: grid layout, smaller font, denser metrics cards, no TOC sidebar. Use for resea