TikZ Collision Audit

Purpose: Find and fix residual visual collisions in TikZ figures in a given .tex file. Labels on arrows, text inside boxes, arrows crossing arrows — this skill catches them using measurement, not intuition.

The fundamental rule: an AI agent cannot reliably eyeball where TikZ elements land. All placement must be verified mathematically before declaring it safe.

Critical context: this is a repair tool, not the primary defense

tikz runs after TikZ has been generated. It audits existing code and fixes what it finds. But it cannot reliably fix diagrams that were never built with measurement in mind.

The upstream defense is writing TikZ safely from the start:

1. Every \node declares explicit minimum width and minimum height
2. Every edge label carries a directional keyword (above, below, etc.)
3. A coordinate map comment block precedes every tikzpicture
4. Standard diagram types use canonical safe templates
5. scale is never used on complex diagrams