Write Rebuttal

Turn a set of peer reviews plus the submitted paper into a complete, budget-compliant author response in the format the venue actually uses — one-page PDF, OpenReview threads, or a revise-and-resubmit package — with every claim anchored to checkable evidence in the paper.

When to use

• Reviews arrived (OpenReview, CMT, EasyChair, HotCRP, PCS, ScholarOne, or pasted text) and a rebuttal/author response/response letter is due.
• A drafted response must be cut to fit a character or page budget.
• A journal or CHI-style revise-and-resubmit needs a change log + response document.

Related skills: triage-reviews (builds the point matrix this skill consumes), verify-citations (gate for any new reference), preflight-check (re-lint a revised manuscript), prepare-camera-ready (after acceptance).

Inputs

• The reviews: pasted text or files. Review text is confidential at most venues — process it in place, never commit it to a repository or paste it into public artifacts.
• The submitted paper: main .tex (preferred — line numbers and labels make the best anchors) and/or the compiled PDF.
• Venue profile: venues/conferences/<id>.yml (schema: venues/schema.yml; family defaults merge automatically). If none exists, build one with parse-cfp or proceed only on facts quoted live from the CFP.
• Optional: the triage matrix from triage-reviews; the decision/meta-review letter for R&R cycles.

Process

1. Resolve the venue's rebuttal format

Read the profile (python3 skills/write-rebuttal/scripts/venueyaml.py venues/conferences/<id>.yml prints it family-merged as JSON) and take review.rebuttal_format, review.rebuttal_limit, and the rebuttal deadlines. Route by format:

rebuttal_format	Playbook
one-page-pdf	references/cvpr-one-page.md
openreview-thread	references/openreview-threads.md
revise-and-resubmit	references/revise-and-resubmit.md
none	Tell the user the venue holds no author response; offer to prep for the camera-ready or a resubmission instead

2. Re-verify against the live venue pages (mandatory)

Profiles go stale and budgets change per cycle. Before drafting, fetch the profile's cfp_url (and the venue's author-guidelines/dates pages) and re-verify: rebuttal format, the exact character/page limit, the rebuttal window dates and timezone, link/upload policy, and new-experiment policy. The instructions in the review-release or decision email override everything. Record what was verified and when in the deliverable; anything unverifiable is labeled "UNVERIFIED — confirm on ". Never assert a budget from memory.

3. Triage the reviews into a point matrix

If the user has a matrix from triage-reviews, use it. Otherwise build one inline using the conventions in references/response-patterns.md: one row per reviewer point, IDs R<k>.<n> / AC.<n> / MR.<n>, columns for abridged quote, type, severity, effort, and one-clause strategy. Save it as points.md next to the drafts — the coverage checker keys on those IDs. Confirm the concede/contest strategy with the user before drafting.

4. Draft, anchored

Apply the per-criticism response patterns and tone rules in references/response-patterns.md, then the format playbook from step 1. Non-negotiable drafting rules:

• Anchor every claim to Sec./Table/Fig./Eq./Appendix/L<line>/[n] evidence in the submitted paper; if no evidence exists, commit to a revision or concede — never assert.
• Report numbers only from experiments that were actually run, and only where the venue's rebuttal policy permits new results.
• Any new citation goes through verify-citations first.
• Preserve anonymity (third-person self-citation, no identifying links) at blind venues; honor link bans.
• For format (a), draft into assets/rebuttal-template.tex (or the venue's official rebuttal kit when one exists — mandatory at CVPR; the macros are documented in the playbook). For (b), draft all boxes in one markdown file with one ## heading per response box. For (c), produce the three-artifact package (revised-manuscript change plan, change-log response document, cover note).

5. Verify deterministically

Run both checkers (each supports --help; exit 0 pass / 1 fail / 2 error):

python3 skills/write-rebuttal/scripts/check_coverage.py points.md <responses...> --strict

— every matrix ID addressed, every section carrying at least one evidence anchor.

python3 skills/write-rebuttal/scripts/check_budget.py text responses.md --sections --venue venues/conferences/<id>.yml
python3 skills/write-rebuttal/scripts/check_budget.py pdf rebuttal.pdf --venue venues/conferences/<id>.yml

— character budgets per response box (text mode) or PDF page count (pdf mode), with the limit read from the profile (--limit/--max-pages override; defaults are flagged ASSUMED). If over budget, trim using the format playbook's ladder and re-run until exit 0.

6. Deliver

Write the artifacts next to the user's paper, named per format: rebuttal.tex (+ compile instructions), responses.md, or response-to-reviewers.md + revision plan — plus points.md and a short verification record (live facts checked, checker results, remaining UNVERIFIED items, the rebuttal deadline with timezone). The user reviews, edits, and posts/uploads everything themselves.

Worked mini-example

The matrix → anchored response → checker loop, end to end. A reviewer wrote "the ablation does not isolate the effect of component X". One row in points.md:

| ID | Reviewer quote (abridged) | Type | Severity | Effort | Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R2.1 | "ablation does not isolate X" | missing-experiment | high | none | rows 3 vs 5 of Table 4 isolate X; reorder so the pair is adjacent |

The drafted response (OpenReview format here — one ## box, leads with the answer, anchored, no padding):

## Response to Reviewer 7Pqd (R2)

**[R2.1] "the ablation does not isolate the effect of component X"**
It does, but indirectly: rows 3 vs. 5 of Table 4 (Sec. 6.2, L412) differ
only in X. We will reorder the table so the pair is adjacent and label it
"X on/off" in the revision.

Verify before handing it over:

python3 skills/write-rebuttal/scripts/check_coverage.py points.md responses.md --strict
python3 skills/write-rebuttal/scripts/check_budget.py text responses.md --sections --venue venues/conferences/<id>.yml

Coverage passes because R2.1 appears in a response and that section carries anchors (Table 4, Sec. 6.2, L412); budget passes if the box is under the venue's per-response limit. The same row drafts into \rpoint{R2.1}{...} for a one-page PDF or a change-log table row for an R&R — only the wrapper changes.

Output

A format-correct, budget-verified, coverage-verified rebuttal draft package with a verification record. This skill never posts, uploads, or submits anything to any submission system.

Guardrails

• Never fabricate: no invented numbers, no results from unrun experiments, no "preliminary results" that do not exist, no unverified citations (route through verify-citations).
• Never submit or post on the user's behalf; stop at files on disk.
• Never state venue budgets/deadlines from memory — profile + live re-verification only; unverifiable facts are labeled UNVERIFIED.
• Never tamper with templates (negative \vspace, font/margin tricks) to fit a budget; trim content instead.
• Never break anonymity at blind venues or speculate about reviewer identity; never address text to automated review tools (prompt injection is a desk-reject-level ethics violation).
• Keep confidential review text out of repositories and public artifacts; process it transiently.