CCF Rebuttal Writer

Family File Contract

Before file work, reuse canonical paths and one task/artifact working directory; default to project-root ccfa-workfiles/<purpose>/<artifact-id>/. Update in place, preserve inputs, and use UTF-8 with Chinese-text checks. Apply artifact-contracts.md for naming, ownership, and task-created cleanup; handoffs inherit these paths.

Collaboration Contract

Before specialist execution, read and apply ccf-humanization first, then ccf-common. At every handoff, reuse their applicable active rules or refresh missing/changed ones. Both preflights are required even without prose; detailed editing, experiment, and maintenance modes run only when relevant.

Integrate necessary specialist contributions under one owner; reuse valid prerequisites and verify affected results. Follow the cooperation routes without duplicate reports.

Core Rule

Handle post-review communication and revision accountability. Responses must be calm, factual, evidence-grounded, and promise only feasible changes. Resubmission adaptation is conservative by default: no new experiments and no bibliography changes unless the user explicitly authorizes them. Follow the user's requested response format: plain text, TeX, reviewer-by-reviewer, issue-grouped, table-first, or short response.

Modes

• rebuttal: reviewer/AC response under a word or time budget.
• revision-ledger: reviewer comment -> action -> manuscript location -> owner -> status.
• response-letter: revision summary or camera-ready response letter.
• resubmission: adapt an already written paper to a new venue with conservative defaults.

Workflow

1. Identify venue, response format, word budget, deadline, review scores/confidence, and whether this is rebuttal, revision, or resubmission.
2. Parse comments into issue groups by reviewer, concern type, severity, available evidence, response strategy, and promised paper change.
3. Load references/response-strategy.md for substantial responses and apply ../ccf-paper-writer/references/prose-quality-guardrails.md; answer actual high-impact concerns first: soundness, novelty, missing evidence, incorrect assumptions, and shared concerns.
4. Load references/revision-ledger.md whenever promised edits, manuscript locations, resubmission actions, review rounds, or cross-version score changes must be tracked. Update one canonical ledger in place; do not create a separate ledger per round unless the user requests snapshots.
5. For full rebuttals, load references/tex-templates.md and use the TeX templates in assets/templates/ when useful.
6. For resubmission, map old reviewer concerns to the new venue's constraints through ccf-submission-checker; do not silently add experiments or bibliography changes.
7. Complete necessary contributions through their owners: paper writer for requested revisions, experiment designer for authorized evidence work, and submission checker for applicable venue/package rules. Use integrity auditor for unresolved claim/result conflicts and reviewer for a consequential unanswered criticism. Integrate returned evidence and verify actual changes before claiming completion in the response; a planned experiment or promised edit remains planned.

Adaptive Output Contract

Put the requested response artifact first. For "write rebuttal", output the rebuttal text or TeX first. For "make a ledger", output the ledger first. Use the full structure below for standard multi-reviewer response planning or when the user asks for strategy plus draft:

Mode:
Venue and constraints:
Issue table:
Response strategy:
Draft response or response file:
Promised paper changes:
Revision ledger:
Resubmission adaptation notes:
Claims/promises to avoid:
Next CCFA owner:
Checklist status:

References

• references/response-strategy.md: response tactics.
• references/response-checklists.md: tone, evidence, promises, and word-budget checks.
• ../ccf-paper-writer/references/prose-quality-guardrails.md: concise, non-defensive response prose and anti-pattern checks.
• references/tex-templates.md: reusable TeX response templates.
• references/revision-ledger.md: tracking reviewer comments and manuscript actions.
• ../ccf-paper-reviewer/references/version-comparison.md: frozen scoring contract and issue provenance for cross-version review; rebuttal prose must not redefine that contract.

Authorized Response Work

Follow ../ccf-common/references/handoff-modes.md and ../ccf-common/references/task-modes.md. A requested response plus revision authorizes both deliverables through their owners. Group duplicate comments while preserving reviewer attribution and answer coverage. Distinguish supplied results, planned experiments, promised revisions, and completed edits; verify an edit's location before claiming it was made. Preserve word budgets and respond to actual concerns without gratuitous apologies, imagined objections, or defensive repetition. A concise factual clarification is not a scientific concession. Reply drafting does not authorize posting or submission.