latex

LATEX

Why this exists / not X

• No existing local skill covers LaTeX at all, so there's no in-repo overlap to avoid.
• vs. hameefy/claude-latex-skill, foogtil/claude-code-math-skills and similar (research/prior-art-research.md §7): those aim to be general-purpose LaTeX assistants. Per PLAN.md's decision, this skill deliberately does not try to be one — it's scoped to the concrete recurring pain points below, not a broad "ask me anything about LaTeX" tool. If a request falls outside compile-error triage, bib hygiene, or venue templating, treat it as out of scope rather than improvising a general answer.

When to use

• A LaTeX compile failed and you have the .log (or can generate one) — triage it to a specific file/line instead of guessing.
• Auditing a .bib file for duplicate keys or missing required fields before submission.
• Starting a draft that needs to follow a specific venue's format.

When not to use

• General "how does LaTeX work" / "explain this package" questions — answer those directly or point at existing docs; don't invoke this skill's machinery for them.
• Proof structure or mathematical rigor — that's the math skill.
• Prose clarity/voice — that's academic-humanizer, invoked by the writing skill.

Core loop

1. Compile-error triage. Given a compile log, run: scripts/parse_log.py <compile.log> It walks the log tracking which source file is currently open (via the (path.tex / closing-paren bookkeeping LaTeX logs use — a heuristic, not a full TeX-engine parser) and pairs each !-prefixed error with its l.<N> line number, printing <file>:<line>: <message> plus a short hint for common error classes (undefined control sequence, missing $, undefined citation, file not found, unbalanced braces). Point the user at the actual file/line before speculating about causes.
2. Bib hygiene. Given a .bib file, run: scripts/bib_lint.py <file.bib> Reports duplicate keys and, per entry type, missing required fields (e.g. article needs author, title, journal, year). It's a hygiene linter, not a BibTeX-grammar validator — assumes reasonably well-formed syntax (one @type{key, per entry).
3. Venue templates. templates/generic-article/main.tex is a placeholder skeleton — not yet a real venue template. Per PLAN.md Phase 2, this skill isn't considered validated until it's been used against a real submission's actual venue template (NeurIPS, ACL, a specific journal, whichever is next). When that happens, add templates/<venue>-<year>/ alongside the generic one and note in this file which venues have been tested for real, rather than just claimed.

Explicitly out of scope

General LaTeX Q&A, proof rigor (→ math), prose editing (→ academic-humanizer via writing). Keep additions here scoped to compile triage, bib hygiene, and templates — see AGENTS.md "What not to do" and PLAN.md's BIB candidate note (split bib hygiene into its own skill only if this one's scope grows past "narrow").

Scripts

• scripts/parse_log.py <compile.log> — no dependencies beyond the Python standard library.
• scripts/bib_lint.py <file.bib> — no dependencies beyond the Python standard library.