shaun-z/rebuttal

Workflow 4: Rebuttal

Prepare and maintain a grounded, venue-compliant rebuttal for: $ARGUMENTS

Scope

This skill is optimized for:

• ICML-style text-only rebuttal
• strict character limits
• multiple reviewers
• follow-up rounds after the initial rebuttal
• safe drafting with no fabrication, no overpromise, and full issue coverage

This skill does not:

• run new experiments automatically unless AUTO_EXPERIMENT = true
• generate new theorem claims automatically
• edit or upload a revised PDF
• submit to OpenReview / CMT / HotCRP

Lifecycle Position

Workflow 1:   idea-discovery
Workflow 1.5: experiment-bridge
Workflow 2:   auto-review-loop (pre-submission)
Workflow 3:   paper-writing
Workflow 4:   rebuttal (post-submission external reviews)

Constants

• VENUE = ICML — Default venue
• RESPONSE_MODE = TEXT_ONLY — v1 default
• REVIEWER_MODEL = gpt-5.4 — Used via a secondary Codex agent for internal stress-testing
• MAX_INTERNAL_DRAFT_ROUNDS = 2
• MAX_STRESS_TEST_ROUNDS = 1
• MAX_FOLLOWUP_ROUNDS = 3
• AUTO_EXPERIMENT = false — When true, invoke /experiment-bridge for reviewer concerns that require new evidence
• QUICK_MODE = false — When true, only run Phase 0-3 and stop after strategy
• REBUTTAL_DIR = rebuttal/

Override: /rebuttal "paper/" — venue: NeurIPS, character limit: 5000

Required Inputs

1. Paper source — PDF, LaTeX directory, or narrative summary
2. Raw reviews — pasted text, markdown, or PDF with reviewer IDs
3. Venue rules — venue name, character/word limit, text-only or revised PDF allowed
4. Current stage — initial rebuttal or follow-up round

If venue rules or limit are missing, stop and ask before drafting.

Safety Model

Three hard gates. If any fails, do not finalize:

1. Provenance gate — every factual statement maps to a known source
2. Commitment gate — every promise maps to already-done / approved-for-rebuttal / future-work-only
3. Coverage gate — every reviewer concern ends in answered / deferred intentionally / needs user input

Workflow

Phase 0: Resume or Initialize

1. If rebuttal/REBUTTAL_STATE.md exists, resume from the recorded phase
2. Otherwise, create rebuttal/ and initialize the output documents
3. Load the paper, reviews, venue rules, and any user-confirmed evidence

Phase 1: Validate Inputs and Normalize Reviews

1. Validate that venue rules are explicit
2. Normalize all reviewer text into rebuttal/REVIEWS_RAW.md verbatim
3. Record metadata in rebuttal/REBUTTAL_STATE.md
4. If ambiguous, pause and ask

Phase 2: Atomize and Classify Reviewer Concerns

Create rebuttal/ISSUE_BOARD.md.

For each atomic concern, record:

• issue_id
• reviewer, round, raw_anchor
• issue_type
• severity
• reviewer_stance
• response_mode
• status

Phase 3: Build Strategy Plan

Create rebuttal/STRATEGY_PLAN.md.

1. Identify 2-4 global themes resolving shared concerns
2. Choose a response mode per issue
3. Build the character budget
4. Identify blocked claims
5. If unresolved blockers exist, pause and present them to the user

QUICK_MODE exit: if QUICK_MODE = true, stop here and present ISSUE_BOARD.md + STRATEGY_PLAN.md.

Phase 3.5: Evidence Sprint (when AUTO_EXPERIMENT = true)

Skip entirely if AUTO_EXPERIMENT is false.

If the strategy plan identifies issues that require new empirical evidence:

1. Generate a mini experiment plan from the reviewer concerns
2. Invoke /experiment-bridge "rebuttal/REBUTTAL_EXPERIMENT_PLAN.md"
3. Wait for results, then update ISSUE_BOARD.md
4. If experiments fail or are inconclusive, switch to narrow_concession or future_work_boundary
5. Save experiment results to rebuttal/REBUTTAL_EXPERIMENTS.md

Phase 4: Draft Initial Rebuttal

Create rebuttal/REBUTTAL_DRAFT_v1.md.

Structure:

1. Short opener
2. Per-reviewer numbered responses
3. Short closing

Also generate rebuttal/PASTE_READY.txt with exact character count.

Phase 5: Safety Validation

Run all lints:

1. Coverage
2. Provenance
3. Commitment
4. Tone
5. Consistency
6. Limit

Phase 6: Stress Test

spawn_agent:
  model: gpt-5.4
  reasoning_effort: xhigh
  message: |
    Stress-test this rebuttal draft:
    [raw reviews + issue board + draft + venue rules]

    1. Unanswered or weakly answered concerns?
    2. Unsupported factual statements?
    3. Risky or unapproved promises?
    4. Tone problems?
    5. Paragraph most likely to backfire with a meta-reviewer?
    6. Minimal grounded fixes only. Do not invent evidence.

    Verdict: safe to submit / needs revision

Save the full response to rebuttal/MCP_STRESS_TEST.md. If a hard safety blocker remains, revise before finalizing.

Phase 7: Finalize — Two Versions

Produce:

1. rebuttal/PASTE_READY.txt — strict version, ready to paste
2. rebuttal/REBUTTAL_DRAFT_rich.md — extended version with optional sections marked
3. Update rebuttal/REBUTTAL_STATE.md
4. Present the remaining risks and any lines needing manual approval

Phase 8: Follow-Up Rounds

When new reviewer comments arrive:

1. Append them to rebuttal/FOLLOWUP_LOG.md
2. Link to existing issues or create new ones
3. Draft the delta reply only
4. Re-run safety lints
5. If continuity helps, reuse the same reviewer agent via send_input
6. Escalate technically, not rhetorically

Key Rules

• Never fabricate evidence, numbers, derivations, citations, or links
• Never overpromise. Only promise what the user explicitly approved.
• Every reviewer concern must be tracked and accounted for
• Preserve raw records
• Shared concerns go in the opener; reviewer-specific details go in the per-reviewer sections
• Answer friendly reviewers too
• Respect the hard character limit