Sync Submission

You help keep the canonical manuscript and journal-specific submission packages from drifting apart. The skill treats submission/{journal}/ as derived output and records whether it is current, stale, or frozen.

When to Use

• Before submitting a journal package.
• After a journal portal or Word editor changed a submission manuscript.
• After rejection, before retargeting to another journal.
• Before /orchestrate --e2e marks a project as submission-ready.

Inputs

1. Project root containing project.yaml, or a direct canonical manuscript path.
2. Journal short name, e.g. chest, ryai, academic_radiology.
3. Optional mode:
   • audit: compare existing submission against canonical source.
   • build: copy canonical source into submission/{journal}/manuscript/ and write metadata.
   • freeze: mark a package as submitted/frozen.

Deterministic Script

python "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/sync_submission.py" audit --project-root . --journal chest
python "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/sync_submission.py" build --project-root . --journal chest
python "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/sync_submission.py" freeze --project-root . --journal chest --status submitted

For double-blind journals, sweep author identifiers across all upload artifacts:

python "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/blind_sweep.py" \
  --registry _shared/authors/author_registry.yaml \
  --files submission/{journal}/supplementary/*.md submission/{journal}/cover_letter.md \
  --backup-dir .cache/blind_sweep_backup

The registry is a project-local YAML mapping author identifiers (full names, native scripts, initials with/without periods, email, ORCID) to role labels (e.g., "Reviewer 1"). See scripts/author_registry_example.yaml for schema. Never commit a populated registry to a public repository — keep it next to the manuscript.

Output Contract

Workflow

1. Resolve canonical manuscript from project.yaml or explicit input.
2. Run the script in the requested mode.
3. If audit reports DRIFT, do not retarget or freeze until the user either patches the canonical manuscript or records the difference as journal-only.
4. If build succeeds, run /verify-refs before final submission.

Quality Gates

• Gate 1: block freezing when canonical manuscript is missing.
• Gate 2: block retargeting when the previous submission has unresolved drift.
• Gate 3: require /verify-refs audit before marking a package submission-safe.
• Gate 4: docx audits must use a recursive walk (paragraphs + tables + nested-table cells); a flat document.paragraphs scan is insufficient.
• Gate 5: before freeze, confirm portal free-text fields (cover letter, data availability, acknowledgements, abstract, author contributions) match the manuscript body.
• Gate 6 (double-blind journals): before freeze, export the portal's blinded review PDF and grep for all author identifiers across the entire upload set — manuscript, supplementary, cover letter, registry record PDFs (PROSPERO/ClinicalTrials), portal Letter-field text. A clean manuscript blind does not imply a clean portal blind.
• Gate 7 (text-only docx rebuilds): never use pandoc --reference-doc=manuscript.docx for response/cover/supplementary text-only docx — the reference docx ships its embedded media (figure files) into the new docx, bloating size 50–100×. Use plain pandoc input.md -o output.docx for text-only artifacts.
• Gate 5b (Phase 4 cover-letter free-text drift): before freeze, run scripts/cover_letter_drift_check.py to verify the cover letter's word-count / reference-count / table-figure-count claims still match the manuscript. Cover letters routinely go stale across v_N → v_(N+1) branching and are not covered by any docx-level audit. See "Phase 4 — Cover-letter free-text drift" below.
• Gate 8 (Phase 5 cross-document N consistency): before freeze, run scripts/cross_document_n_check.py over the manuscript bundle (abstract, body, PROSPERO record, cover letter, supplementary, INDEX, PRISMA flow caption). Any N category with >1 distinct integer value is a P0 drift. When a FINAL_POOL_LOCK.yaml is present, supply --pool-lock to make the locked counts the authoritative baseline. See "Phase 5 — Cross-document N consistency" below.
• Gate 9 (Phase 6 intra-manuscript scope drift): run scripts/scope_drift_check.py against the manuscript (and optionally the PROSPERO record). Numeric anchors (AUC, OR/HR/RR, sensitivity/specificity) appearing in Limitations / Discussion but absent from Methods + Results are P0 SCOPE_DRIFT. PROSPERO ↔ Methods synthesis-method disagreement is a P0 PROSPERO_DRIFT.
• Gate 10 (Phase 7 v_(N+1) docx regeneration): when building a new submission from a frozen prior version, run scripts/verify_package_integrity.py --assert-vN-docx-changed --vN-docx <prev>.docx --new-docx <next>.docx. Identical MD5 = unmodified seed copy = block submission. Defense-in-depth — required even when the upstream pipeline appears to have regenerated the docx.

Phase 4 — Cover-letter free-text drift

Cover letters live outside the submission docx files but are read by the editor side-by-side with the manuscript. Their ## Article details block — body word count, abstract word count, reference count, table/figure count — is a sidecar SSOT that routinely goes stale when a manuscript branches v_N → v_(N+1) (word limit retarget, abstract restructure, late reference batch).

scripts/cover_letter_drift_check.py measures the manuscript truth and compares it to the cover letter's numeric claims:

python "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/cover_letter_drift_check.py" \
    --manuscript manuscript.md \
    --cover-letter cover_letter.md \
    --refs refs.bib \
    --out qc/cover_letter_drift.json

Body words are matched with a 5% tolerance ("approximately N words" phrasing). Abstract words tolerate ±5. Reference / table / figure counts require exact match.

Output qc/cover_letter_drift.json:

{
  "submission_safe": false,
  "truth": {"body_words": 3036, "abstract_words": 319, "references": 12,
            "tables": 3, "figures": 4},
  "claims": {"body_words": 3790, "abstract_words": 250, "references": 12},
  "drifts": [
    {"field": "body_words", "truth": 3036, "cover_letter_claim": 3790,
     "severity": "MAJOR",
     "note": "|claim - truth| = 754 > tolerance 151"}
  ]
}

Drift resolution: regenerate the cover letter from the manuscript at v_(N+1) build time. The script never edits the cover letter — that is left to the manuscript build pipeline so the cover letter stays a deliberate authored artifact.

Phase 5 — Cross-document N consistency

Multi-document cohort-size drift is a high-frequency desk-reject pattern. Manuscript abstracts, body prose, PROSPERO records, supplementary extraction sheets, and PRISMA flow captions all repeat the same k included / k excluded / N patients totals — and any disagreement between them is read by reviewers as either a data-integrity failure or a late-edit failure. Either reading ends the round.

scripts/cross_document_n_check.py scans the submission package, extracts every "N <noun>" claim by category (patients, cases, included, excluded, nodules, tumors, studies_total), and groups them by category. A category with more than one distinct integer value is a P0 drift.

python "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/cross_document_n_check.py" \
    --root . \
    --out qc/cross_document_n.json

When the project has frozen a 2_Data/FINAL_POOL_LOCK.yaml from /meta-analysis Phase 3f.5, pass it as the authoritative anchor:

python "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/cross_document_n_check.py" \
    --root .