figure-style

# 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). This skill is the inner tier (make one plot good); `figure-composer` assembles these panels into one multi-panel figure and `paper-narrative` reviews a whole paper's figure arc — the outer two tiers of the stack. --- ## §1 Data fidelity & self-consistency **1.1 Excluded rows.** A row marked excluded or flagged in the source data is either omitted entirely or drawn with a visually distinct open/hatched marker and named in the key. It **never** enters a summary statistic plotted alongside the included rows. **1.2 Comparable conditions only.** Arms measured under non-comparable conditions (different N, epoch budget, initialisation, protocol) are not plotted as visual peers. Separate them with a facet break or a marker on the label, and state the difference once in the caption. **1.3 Self-consistency.** Every key, threshold, and titl...