Assess a manuscript's fit to a target journal/venue — scope, novelty bar, length & structure limits, reference style (ACS/IEEE/APA/Nature), audience, article types — and output a fit score with.

Core Rule

Fit is a judgment from known conventions, not a fabricated metric. Never invent a journal's specific numbers — do not assert an impact factor, an acceptance rate, an exact word limit, or a precise display-item cap you cannot source. Reason from what is stated (in MANUSCRIPT_MAP.md), what is broadly known about the venue class (ACS / IEEE / APA / Nature-family conventions), and tell the author to confirm the exact figures against the journal's current author guidelines. A confidently-wrong "6000 word limit" is the same failure mode as a fabricated citation: a specific claim with nothing behind it.

This skill assesses fit and produces a gap list — it does not reshape the manuscript. Restructuring to fit is downstream work (/outline).

When to Use

Invoke with /journal-fit when:

Choosing where to submit, or sanity-checking a target before the final push.
A draft is near-complete and you want the structure/length/style gaps surfaced before formatting.
A desk-reject risk is in play — fit-to-scope is the #1 desk-reject reason; catch it early.
Comparing two candidate venues (run the skill twice, compare gap lists).

State the target: /journal-fit ACL. If no venue is given, read it from MANUSCRIPT_MAP.md → Target journal.

Process

Phase 1: Load the Manuscript's Self-Description

Read MANUSCRIPT_MAP.md — Thesis, Contribution, Audience, target venue, the Structure table (sections + budgets → current length), Figures & tables count, and the reference style noted there.
Estimate current length — sum the section budgets / use texcount on the drafted .tex (deterministic — don't eyeball; CLAUDE.md → Model vs Code). Count display items against MANUSCRIPT_MAP → Figures & tables.
Identify the article type the manuscript is — full research article, letter/communication, review, methods/protocol, perspective. Venues accept different types with different limits.

Phase 2: Establish the Venue's Known Conventions

Reason from the venue class, and be explicit about confidence:

Reference style — the deterministic, knowable axis:
- ACL (NLP/ML): numbered, ISO-4 abbreviations, sentence-case titles; \citep/\citet author–year in text via the venue style file.
- IEEE (engineering/CS): numbered [1] in brackets, abbreviated, specific field order.
- APA (psych/social/education): author–date, full journal names, DOI required.
- Nature-family: superscript numbers, highly compressed, strict display-item limits. Mismatched style is a concrete, fixable gap — name the required style.
Scope & audience — is the topic in the journal's stated aims? Is the framing pitched at its readership (specialist vs broad)? This is the highest-weight, most-judgment axis.
Novelty bar — broad-impact venues (Nature/Science family, top field journals) demand a larger contribution delta than solid specialist journals. Calibrate the manuscript's contribution (from MANUSCRIPT_MAP) against the bar — qualitatively. Do not invent an acceptance rate to quantify it.
Length & structure — typical limits for the article type. State these as conventions to verify, not facts. "Top ML/NLP venues commonly run ~8 pages plus an unlimited appendix — confirm the exact cap in the current call for papers."
Article types accepted — does the venue publish the type this manuscript is?

For anything you cannot source — exact word count, exact figure cap, impact factor, acceptance rate — say "confirm in author guidelines," never a fabricated number.

Phase 3: Score Each Axis

Rate fit per axis, with the reasoning that drives the score:

Axis	What "good fit" looks like	Weight
Scope match	Topic squarely in the venue's aims; framing matches readership	High
Novelty bar	Contribution clears the venue's typical significance threshold	High
Audience	Background level + terminology pitched at this readership	Medium
Length	Within the type's typical limits (confirm exact)	Medium
Structure	Matches expected section format (IMRaD / structured abstract / merged R&D)	Medium
Reference style	Matches required style, or a known mechanical conversion away	Low (fixable)
Article type	The venue publishes this type	Gate

Weight scope, novelty, and audience highest — they decide desk-reject. Reference style is low-weight because it is a deterministic conversion (biber/CSL), not a fundamental misfit.

Phase 4: Produce the Fit Verdict and Gap List

Overall fit — Strong / Moderate / Weak, with one-paragraph reasoning that names the deciding axes. Not a fabricated percentage — a calibrated judgment.
Gap list — what to change to fit, ordered by effort × impact: scope/framing gaps first (hardest, highest-stakes), mechanical gaps (style, length trim) last.
Alternative venues — if fit is Weak, suggest venue classes that fit better (e.g. "a specialist methods journal rather than a broad-impact one"), without inventing their metrics.

Output Format

# Journal Fit — <manuscript> → ACL
> Source of venue conventions: known ACL/ML-venue conventions + MANUSCRIPT_MAP.
> CONFIRM all exact limits against the current ACL call for papers — figures below are conventions, not quoted policy.

## Overall fit: Moderate
The topic (a pre-execution verification gate for LLM-agent tool calls) sits
squarely in ACL's scope and the contribution is a genuine task-setting-extension
delta, so scope and novelty fit well. The main risks are length (currently ~9
pages against a commonly ~8-page norm — verify) and a reference style mismatch
(drafted APA; ACL uses a numbered style). Structure is standard IMRaD, which fits.

## Axis scores
| Axis | Fit | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | Strong | Verification gating for agent tool calls is in ACL aims |
| Novelty | Strong | First study of pre-execution gating for agent tool calls; clears a solid bar |
| Audience | Strong | NLP/agents readership; terminology matches |
| Length | Weak | ~9 pages; top venues commonly ~8 pages + appendix — CONFIRM and trim |
| Structure | Strong | IMRaD as expected |
| Reference style | Weak (fixable) | Drafted APA; numbered ACL style required — mechanical conversion |
| Article type | Pass | Full research paper — published at ACL |

## Gap list (ordered by effort × impact)
1. **[Length]** Trim ~1 page to reach the ~8-page norm (CONFIRM exact cap); move detail to the appendix. Target the Discussion. — high effort
2. **[Style]** Convert APA → ACL numbered style (ISO-4 abbreviations) via biber/CSL — do not retype. — low effort, deterministic
3. **[Display items]** 7 figures + 2 tables = 9; the body is crowded — CONFIRM the page budget, then move surplus to the appendix. — medium
4. **[Framing]** Abstract leads with method, not impact; ACL readers want the deployment significance (fewer hallucinated tool calls) up front. — low effort, high payoff

## Before you submit
- Pull the CURRENT ACL call for papers and replace every "CONFIRM" above with the quoted limit.
- Run /citation-audit after the style conversion.
- Consider /peer-review against the novelty bar.

## If fit were Weak
A specialist agents/tool-use workshop would impose a lower novelty bar and looser
length limits than a broad-impact main-conference track — consider that venue
class. (No metrics invented; confirm any specific venue's guidelines directly.)

Pairs With

MANUSCRIPT_MAP.md — the source of the manuscript's scope, length, and current style; the fit check reads it first.
/outline — if structure/length gaps are large, re-outline to the venue's shape.
/citation-audit — run after a reference-style conversion to verify field completeness for the new style.
/peer-review — pair when the question includes "does the contribution clear the bar?" — the novelty-bar axis is exactly what a referee judges.

Common Rationalizations

Rationalization	Reality
"The word limit is 6000" (unsourced)	If you cannot point to the author guidelines, that number is a fabrication. Say "confirm exact limit."
"High impact factor, worth a shot"	A fabricated or stale impact factor is not a fit argument. Fit is scope + novelty + audience, sourced from aims.
"Reference style is easy, ignore it for now"	Right that it's low-stakes (it's a CSL conversion) — but still list it so it isn't forgotten at submission.
"Close enough on scope"	Scope mismatch is the #1 desk-reject. "Close enough" gets bounced before review. Be honest about the gap.
"I'll just trim later"	A 30%-over manuscript needs structural cuts, not later polish. Surface the trim target now.

Notes

Fit assessment is judgment from conventions — run on the Reasoner model (CLAUDE.md → Model Selection).
The single rule that matters: known conventions in, "confirm in author guidelines" for anything exact, zero invented metrics.
A "Weak" verdict is a service — re-targeting before submission beats a desk-reject after.

Edit this page on GitHub

Journal Fit

On this page