paper-talk skill

Paper Talk: End-to-End Conference Talk Pipeline

Workflow: from a completed paper to a conference-ready talk artifact — slide outline, Beamer source, editable PPTX, speaker notes, full talk script, polished visuals, and assurance checks.

Pipeline target: $ARGUMENTS

Assurance Ladder

The skill takes an explicit — assurance: argument; default is polished.

Phase 4 (assurance checks) is opt-in via — assurance: conference-ready. The lower levels skip claim / citation / anonymity audits, which is correct when content has already been audited at the paper-writing stage.

Hard Invariants

These are non-negotiable across all phases:

1. Original paper is read-only. This workflow consumes the paper directory; it never modifies paper/main.tex or other paper artifacts.
2. Original deck is preserved. /paper-slides produces a baseline deck; /slides-polish writes a _polished versioned copy. The original Beamer + PPTX are never overwritten.
3. Speaker notes are byte-stable. Polish must not change slide.notes_slide content. Phase 4 verifies this.
4. No new content anywhere in the pipeline. All slide text, speaker notes, talk script, Q&A answers, claims, numbers, citations, URLs, author names, affiliations, anonymity placeholders, and experiment results must be either paper-grounded (extracted from PAPER_DIR/ artefacts) or explicitly user-provided. The pipeline never invents content during outline, build, polish, audit, or export. Phase-4 anonymity scan + claim audit verify this end-to-end.
5. No slide reordering. Add / drop / reorder requires explicit user flags.
6. Fresh-context independence. Per-page Codex calls in /slides-polish use fresh spawnagent calls (no sendinput) and are same-family provisional in the base mirror.
7. Anonymity fail-closed. If any audit (or any Codex fix proposal) would replace a placeholder with a real title / count / URL, the workflow halts and surfaces the proposal for human review. See ../shared-references/experiment-integrity.md.
8. Style references are guidance, not text source. A — reference: PDF or — style: preset informs visual weight and structural rhythm; never copy prose, examples, slide titles, or speaker-note text from the reference.
9. Final report cannot be conference-ready unless required audits pass. Phase 6 verifies and downgrades verdict if audits fail.
10. reasoningeffort: xhigh** is invariant across all effort levels for any Codex call invoked by sub-skills.

Constants

• PAPERDIR = paper/** — Source paper directory. Override via positional argument.
• OUTPUTDIR = slides/** — Where the deck artefacts live.
• STATEDIR = .aris/paper-talk/** — Workflow state, audit logs, final report.
• TALKTYPE = spotlight** — Default talk format. Inherited by /paper-slides.
• TALKMINUTES = 15** — Default duration. Inherited by /paper-slides.
• VENUE = NeurIPS — Default venue (used by /paper-slides color schemes when — style is not passed).
• ASPECTRATIO = 16:9** — Inherited by /paper-slides.
• STYLEPRESET** — generic if not passed; why-rf and venue presets supported by /slides-polish.
• REFERENCEVISUAL** — Required when assurance ≥ polished. The Beamer compile of this talk is an acceptable self-reference; an external academic talk PDF is preferred when the user wants visual alignment beyond defaults.
• AUTOPROCEED = false** — Each major phase pauses for user approval. Set true only when explicitly requested.

Inputs

Discovered from $ARGUMENTS and the project directory:

1. PAPERDIR/** — compiled paper (main.tex + main.pdf). The paper must already be in good shape; this workflow does not write the paper.
2. PAPERDIR/sections/.tex — section sources for content extraction.
3. PAPERDIR/figures/** — figures available for slide reuse.
4. (optional) slides/SLIDEOUTLINE.md** — pre-existing outline (resume mode); skips Phase 1 generation.
5. (optional) — reference: — visual anchor for /slides-polish. If absent and the assurance level requires polish, the workflow uses the Beamer self-compile as reference.
6. (optional) — talktype, — minutes, — style, — effort** — see Constants.

Output Layout

File names match /paper-slides's emit contract — this workflow is a non-renaming consumer.

slides/
├── SLIDE_OUTLINE.md                # Phase-1 outline (claim-first per slide)
├── main.tex                        # Beamer source (from /paper-slides)
├── main.pdf                        # compiled Beamer
├── presentation.pptx               # editable PPTX (from /paper-slides; emit name fixed by /paper-slides)
├── presentation_pre_polish.pptx    # snapshot before /slides-polish
├── presentation_polished.pptx      # /slides-polish output (when assurance ≥ polished)
├── presentation_polished.pdf       # rendered (LibreOffice or user-export)
├── speaker_notes.md                # per-slide notes (from /paper-slides)
├── TALK_SCRIPT.md                  # full word-for-word talk script + Q&A (from /paper-slides)
└── assets/                         # per-slide PNG previews

.aris/paper-talk/
├── PIPELINE_STATE.json             # phase pointer, status, timestamps
├── FINAL_REPORT.md                 # human-readable summary at end
├── audit-input/                    # Phase-4 staging copies of slide text + notes + script (so /paper-claim-audit and /citation-audit can run on slide content as a synthetic "paper")
│   ├── main.tex                    # \input{sections/slide_text.tex} \i

The audit JSON files follow the shared 6-state schema; see ../shared-references/assurance-contract.md.

Workflow

Phase 0: Setup

1. Validate paper directory: ls $PAPERDIR/main.tex $PAPERDIR/main.pdf. If absent → halt and ask user to point to the compiled paper.
2. Check prerequisites:

• LaTeX: which xelatex pdflatex latexmk
• PPTX rendering: which soffice (LibreOffice headless) — required for Phase 4 export integrity check; otherwise prompt user to export PDF manually.
• PDF tools: which pdfinfo pdftoppm (poppler) — required for /slides-polish PNG rendering.
• Codex MCP availability.
• python-pptx (python3 -c 'import pptx').

1. Resolve overrides from $ARGUMENTS: talk_type, minutes, assurance, reference, style, effort.
2. State init: write .aris/paper-talk/PIPELINE_STATE.json with phase: 0, timestamp, all resolved overrides.
3. Resume mode: if slides/SLIDEOUTLINE.md exists and PIPELINESTATE.json shows recent in-progress work, prompt the user — resume from last phase or start fresh.

Phase 1: Slide Outline (Checkpoint)

Goal: produce or accept a slides/SLIDE_OUTLINE.md that the user signs off on before any deck-building happens.

If slides/SLIDE_OUTLINE.md already exists, present its summary (slide count, time budget, claim-per-slide map) to the user and ask:

"Use existing outline (Y/n)? Modify? Regenerate?"

Otherwise, delegate to /paper-slides Phase-1 only (content extraction + slide outline generation). /paper-slides writes the outline into its own state; we adopt it as slides/SLIDE_OUTLINE.md.

The outline must contain, per slide:

• A claim-first title (states the slide's point, not the topic).
• One main idea per slide.
• Bullet content (sentence fragments, not paragraphs).
• Figure / equation / callout note.
• Time budget (seconds).
• Transition cue.
• Speaker note seed (1-3 sentences; expanded in Phase 2).

Checkpoint: present the outline. Default behavior: pause for user approval. Set AUTO_PROCEED = true only when the user is explicitly running unattended.

Phase 2: Build Baseline Deck

Invoke /paper-slides to generate Beamer source + PPTX from the approved outline.

/paper-slides "<paper-dir>" — talk_type: <T> — minutes: <N> — venue: <V> — aspect: 16:9 — notes: true

Forward — style-ref: if the user originally passed it (writer-side; the reviewer-side polish in Phase 3 must NOT see it — see invariant 8).

/paper-slides produces (emit names fixed by /paper-slides):

• slides/main.tex + slides/main.pdf (Beamer)
• slides/presentation.pptx (editable PPTX)
• slides/speaker_notes.md
• slides/TALK_SCRIPT.md

After return: verify the four artefacts exist. If any missing, halt with a diagnostic. Do not rename outputs — downstream phases bind to these exact paths.

Phase 3: Visual Polish (when assurance ≥ polished)

Skip when assurance == draft.

Invoke /slides-polish against the freshly generated PPTX, with a reference. If the user passed — reference:, use that. Otherwise, use the Beamer compile (slides/main.pdf) as the visual reference — the Beamer is the design intent for the same talk, so it is the correct anchor when no external reference is available.

/slides-polish "slides/presentation.pptx" — reference: slides/main.pdf — style: <preset> — effort: <effort>

After return: verify slides/presentationpolished.pptx exists; if rendering tools are available, also verify slides/presentationpolished.pdf.

The polish phase is read-only on content (see Hard Invariants). If /slides-polish emits a BLOCKED verdict because a Codex fix proposal would alter content, surface that block to the user and halt rather than overriding.

Phase 4: Assurance Checks (when assurance == conference-ready)

Skip when assurance ∈ {draft, polished}.

/paper-claim-audit and /citation-audit expect a paper-shaped input (paper/main.tex + paper/sections/.tex + paper/results/) and emit JSON under paper/. Slides have a different shape, so this phase first stages slide artefacts into a synthetic paper directory, then invokes the audits against that synthetic input. Verdicts are written under .aris/paper-talk/audits/ using the shared 6-state schema (PASS, WARN, FAIL, NOTAPPLICABLE, BLOCKED, ERROR) — see ../shared-references/assurance-contract.md.

4.0 Staging adapter

The staged "paper" mirrors /paper-claim-audit and /citation-audit's expected layout: main.tex at the root that \input{}s sections/*.tex, plus a .bib file and results/+figures/ symlinks.

.aris/paper-talk/audit-input/
├── main.tex
│   # contains: \input{sections/slide_text.tex}
│   #           \input{sections/notes.tex}
│   #           \input{sections/script.tex}
│   #           \bibliography{references}
├── sections/
│   ├── slide_text.tex      # one \section{Slide K — <title>} per slide; visible bullets, titles, callout text, in-slide \cite{...}
│   ├── notes.tex           # speaker_notes.md converted to LaTeX, one \section per slide
│   └── script.tex          # TALK_SCRIPT.md converted to LaTeX, one \section per slide
├── references.bib → ../../../paper/references.bib  # symlink to source paper bib (or copy if symlink not allowed)
├── results/ → ../../../paper/results/              # symlink — claim audit needs real evidence
└── figures/ → ../../../paper/figures/              # symlink — citation audit may reference figure captions

If the source paper uses a different bib name (e.g., paper.bib), mirror the actual file. If multiple bibs are used, link them all.

The staged "paper" exists only for the duration of Phase 4 and is removed in Phase 6 unless the user passes — keep-audit-input.

4.1 Slide claim audit

Invoke /paper-claim-audit against the staged input. Scope is slide text + speaker notes + full talk script — talks often smuggle unsupported claims into spoken parts that the visible bullets don't show.

/paper-claim-audit ".aris/paper-talk/audit-input"

The audit emits audit-input/PAPERCLAIMAUDIT.json with the shared 6-state schema. Move it to .aris/paper-talk/audits/slideclaimaudit.json and de-stage the path prefix so the verdicts cite slide K rather than synthetic-paper sections.

A FAIL or BLOCKED verdict on any claim downgrades the Phase-6 final verdict from conference-ready to polished.

4.2 Citation audit

Invoke /citation-audit over the staged input. Verify any \cite{...} in slides + notes + script via DBLP / CrossRef; flag fabricated entries.

/citation-audit ".aris/paper-talk/audit-input"