Nature Figure Making Skill

A guide for producing publication-quality scientific figures as a visual argument, not as isolated pretty plots. Every figure starts from a claim, an evidence hierarchy, and a review-risk check before code or aesthetics.

The older Python/matplotlib rules in this skill remain valid. The skill now also supports R, especially ggplot2 + patchwork + ComplexHeatmap + ggrepel + svglite/cairo_pdf + ragg. If the user provides a private plotting template collection, use it only as an internal adaptation source and do not reveal its path, filenames, or provenance in user-facing output.

Color policy: prefer unified method families across all panels over maximal hue separation. For dense Nature Machine Intelligence-style figure pages, use the low-saturation NMI pastel family described in references/api.md and reserve green/red mainly for gains, drops, and other directional cues.

First move: figure contract before plotting

Before generating or editing code, establish the contract below.