Response To Reviewers

Core Rule

A response letter is a promise to the editor that the manuscript now matches what you wrote. Therefore: never claim a change you have not made. Every "we have revised X" must point to a real edit at a real location (section + line, or quoted new text). If a change is intended but not yet applied, the letter says so honestly ("we will revise…") or — better — the edit is made first and then described. A response that overstates the revision is the same integrity failure as a fabricated citation, and the editor will check.

Address every point. Quote it. State the change and where. Stay courteous even when the reviewer is wrong — disagreement is fine, dismissiveness is not. The letter reports edits; making the edits (especially to thesis/quantities/methods/argument-citations) is Protected work that needs the author.

When to Use

Invoke with /response-to-reviewers when:

• A decision letter arrived (major/minor revision) and you need a point-by-point response.
• You have applied (or planned) revisions and need the letter that maps each to a reviewer comment.
• Preparing a rebuttal where you must defend a choice the reviewer questioned, with evidence.

Provide the reviews: paste the decision letter, or point to the file. If the manuscript was revised already, the skill verifies each claimed change against the actual diff.

Process

Phase 1: Parse the Decision Letter

1. Read the reviews — split into individual, numbered comments per reviewer (R1.1, R1.2, R2.1…). A single paragraph often contains two distinct asks — split them so none is missed.
2. Read MANUSCRIPT_MAP.md — Thesis, Contribution, "Claims that need extra care." A reviewer ask that would change the thesis, a reported quantity, or the methods is a Protected Claim — flag it; the author decides whether to comply, not the agent.
3. Read tasks/reviews/_index.md → ## Top Rules — if a reviewer is flagging something you have been told before, this is a recurring critique to log (Phase 5).

Phase 2: Classify Each Comment

For every comment, decide the response posture:

A disagreement still gets a courteous, evidence-bound reply — never silence, never dismissal.

Phase 3: Verify Every Claimed Change Against the Manuscript

This is the integrity gate of the skill. For each "we changed X":

1. Locate the actual edit — the section/line or the new text in the .tex. If the manuscript was revised, diff old vs new and confirm the change exists.
2. If the change is NOT in the manuscript, you have two honest options: (a) make the edit now (if it is not a Protected Claim — those need author sign-off), then describe it; or (b) write "we will revise…" / surface it on the edit checklist as pending. Do not write "we have revised" for an edit that is not there.
3. Quote new text accurately — if the letter quotes the revised sentence, it must be verbatim from the manuscript (same fidelity rule as a source quotation).
4. Cite honestly — if the response adds a citation to satisfy a reviewer, that \cite must resolve in references.bib to a real source. Never invent one to look responsive (block-fabrication.sh will block the stub; the cardinal rule forbids it regardless).

Phase 4: Draft the Letter

Write the point-by-point letter. Conventions:

1. Open with a brief, genuine thanks to the editor and reviewers and a one-line summary of the revision's scope.
2. Per comment: quote the reviewer verbatim (blockquote/italic), then the response, then the precise location and — where useful — the quoted new text. Use a stable numbering (R1.1, R2.3) the editor can follow.
3. Courteous register throughout — "We thank the reviewer for…", "We agree…", "We respectfully note…". Calibrated, not defensive, not obsequious.
4. Close with a short statement that all points have been addressed.

Phase 5: Emit the Edit Checklist and Log Recurring Critiques

1. Edit checklist — every change the letter claims, with its status: done (verified in the manuscript) or PENDING (must be applied before submission). Flag Protected Claims for author approval. The letter and the manuscript must be reconciled before the response goes out — a PENDING item means the letter is not yet truthful.
2. Log recurring critiques — for any comment that repeats prior feedback, add a note under tasks/reviews/ (<YYYY-MM-DD>-<slug>.md, template tasks/reviews/_TEMPLATE.md): Feedback → Root Cause → Rule, tagged applies_to: [reviewer-response, ...]. Promote to _index.md → ## Top Rules if it has recurred. A reviewer's repeated complaint is a rule, not a one-off.

Output Format

# Response to Reviewers — <manuscript title>

We thank the editor and both reviewers for their careful reading. We have revised
the manuscript to address all points; changes are summarized below and marked in
the revised file. [1–2 lines on the revision's scope.]


## Reviewer 1

**R1.1** — *"The causal language in the Discussion overstates an associational result."*

We agree. We have changed "the gate causes higher accuracy" to "the gate is
associated with higher accuracy" throughout the Discussion (discussion.tex §4 ¶3,
and the abstract). The revised sentence reads: "The verification gate was
associated with >90% removal of hallucinated tool calls on the tested agent
harness." *(Verified in manuscript.)*

**R1.2** — *"Effect sizes are not reported alongside p-values."*

We agree. We now report effect sizes with 95% CIs in Table 2 and the Results text
(results.tex §3.2). *(Verified.)*

**R1.3** — *"Consider generalizing the claim to other agent settings."*

We respectfully note this is beyond the tested scope: our data cover the tested
agent harness only. Rather than generalize unsupported, we have added a sentence in
the Limitations (discussion.tex §4 ¶6) noting that extension to other settings
requires further study. *(Verified.)*

## Reviewer 2

**R2.1** — *"Where is the baseline hallucination rate sourced?"*

We thank the reviewer for catching this. The 23% baseline rate is now cited to the
relevant survey (halluc2022) at results.tex §3.1. *(Verified — halluc2022 resolves
in references.bib.)*


We believe the revisions address all reviewer comments and have improved the
manuscript. We are happy to make further changes if needed.

## Edit Checklist (reconcile BEFORE sending — letter must match manuscript)
- [x] Discussion + abstract: causal → associational (R1.1) — done [PROTECTED: was confirmed by author]
- [x] Table 2 + Results: add effect sizes + CIs (R1.2) — done
- [x] Limitations: harness-scope caveat (R1.3) — done
- [x] Results: cite halluc2022 for 23% baseline rate (R2.1) — done
- [ ] R2.2 (add an ablation experiment) — PENDING author decision: out of current data; propose acknowledging as limitation. NOT yet claimed as done in the letter.

## Logged to tasks/reviews/
- 2026-06-03-overclaim-discussion-causal.md (applies_to: [overclaim, reviewer-response]) — recurrence of a prior Top Rule; promoted.

Pairs With

• prompt-router.sh — fires the reviewer-response reminder on revision keywords (quote the reviewer, state change + location, courteous, never claim an unmade change). This skill operationalizes that reminder.
• /claim-check — run on any section where a reviewer flagged overclaim, to confirm the revised verb/quantifier now matches the evidence before you claim the fix.
• /citation-audit — run if the response added citations, to confirm they resolve and are well-formed.
• block-fabrication.sh — blocks adding a stub citation to look responsive. If it fires, the "fix" was a fabrication.
• tasks/reviews/ — recurring critiques are logged here (Phase 5); agent_docs/peer-review.md documents the response methodology.

Common Rationalizations

Notes

• Drafting the framing and judging disagreements is Reasoner work; mechanical letter formatting is Drafter work (CLAUDE.md → Model Selection).
• The non-negotiable: the letter never claims a change the manuscript does not contain. Reconcile the edit checklist to zero PENDING-but-claimed items before sending.
• Changes to thesis/quantities/methods/argument-citations remain Protected — confirm with the author and record in tasks/decisions.md before describing them as done.