Engineering Figure Table

Use this skill to make figures and tables serve the manuscript argument.

Core Stance

• Define visual responsibility before visual styling.
• A figure or table should carry a specific claim, setup fact, evidence axis, or reader action.
• Do not let captions claim what the visual does not show.
• Visuals can illustrate mechanisms, but they cannot prove hidden mechanisms without direct visual, tabular, or experimental evidence.
• Do not use tables as unstructured parameter dumps unless the table's job is setup compression.
• Keep category names, metric names, captions, and prose consistent.
• Give each float one job. Showing the same data as a trend and as exact values is fine; showing it twice for the same purpose is not. Split the main comparison and the ablation when combining them makes either harder to read (P9 in reviewer-attack-patterns.md).
• Make colors semantic (for example success versus failure), and keep one table style across the paper.
• A teaser figure stays light, the framework figure carries the method, and qualitative result figures show representative cases chosen by a stated criterion, including observed failures (step 5 in writing-process.md).
• Number floats in the order they are first referenced in the text (P7).

Boundaries

• Use engineering-writing when the user needs section prose around the visual evidence.
• Use engineering-polishing for prose-only clarity or style work.
• Use engineering-response when visual changes are driven by reviewer or advisor comments.
• Use engineering-validation for final label/reference/build consistency before claiming submission readiness.

When to Open Extra Files

Workflow

1. State the paper claim the visual supports.
2. Assign one responsibility to each figure/table.
3. Map each panel, row, or column to a piece of evidence.
4. Check source-data and caption consistency when values, metrics, or panels are provided.
5. Check whether the caption states only visible or tabulated information.
6. Check consistency across prose, caption, labels, and notes.
7. Check whether any category/metric rename needs coordinated changes.
8. Remove or redesign a visual if it has no claim, setup fact, evidence axis, or reader action.
9. If editing LaTeX, preserve labels and references unless there is a direct reason to change them.

Default Output

Visual audit
| Item | Responsibility | Visible/tabulated evidence | Claim supported | Must not claim | Placement | Related prose action | Risk | Action |

Panel-claim map
| Panel/row/column | Claim served | Evidence shown | Source-data check | Caption boundary |

Caption/table revision
[English caption or table plan]

Consistency actions
- labels:
- category names:
- metric names:
- prose references: