Publication-Grade Figure Rules

A checklist for correct, legible, internally-consistent scientific figures. This skill does not impose a visual house style — frame, font, and palette are parameters. Load it and call apply_figure_style() before any plot.

§0 Scope

§1–§3, §8, and §9 are correctness — they apply to every plot, in every context, and have no aesthetic content. §4–§7 are guidance — defaults that produce a clean result but that a deliberate alternative can override (individual rules inside §4–§7 that state a factual/perceptual invariant — e.g. §4.4 semantic-zero centring, §4.5 CVD, §6.9 leader anchoring — still bind). On its own, this skill is the inner tier (make one plot good); figure-composer and paper-narrative supply multi-panel and whole-paper context.