limitations-scope-writer

Original：🇺🇸 English

Translated

Plan, draft, and revise ML/AI limitations, scope, failure cases, ethics, broader impact, and conclusion caveats so they control claim boundaries without undermining the paper. Use when the user wants limitation wording, scope statements, failure-case interpretation, ethics/broader-impact text, or overclaim reduction.

4installs

Sourcea-green-hand-jack/ml-research-skills

Added on2026-05-04

NPX Install

npx skill4agent add a-green-hand-jack/ml-research-skills limitations-scope-writer

SKILL.md Content

View Translation Comparison →

Limitations Scope Writer

Write limitations and scope as claim-boundary control. This skill helps the paper acknowledge real constraints, explain their impact, and preserve the valid contribution.

Use this skill for:

drafting limitations sections
writing scope statements and failure-case paragraphs
calibrating conclusion caveats
turning negative or mixed results into honest boundaries
writing ethics, broader impact, and deployment caveats when required
reducing overclaiming without weakening supported claims

Do not use this skill for hostile review. Use

paper-reviewer-simulator

for reviewer critique. Use

experiment-story-writer

for mixed-result results prose. Use

paper-writing-memory-manager

to propagate scope changes to title, abstract, intro, results, captions, and conclusion. Use

paper-draft-consistency-editor

for full-draft consistency.

Skill Directory Layout

text

<installed-skill-dir>/
├── SKILL.md
├── references/
│   ├── limitation-patterns.md
│   └── ethics-and-scope.md
└── templates/
    └── limitations-scope-plan.md

Progressive Loading

Always read
```
references/limitation-patterns.md
```
.
Read
```
references/ethics-and-scope.md
```
when writing ethics, broader impact, deployment caveats, data/model risks, or human-subject/domain caveats.

Use

templates/limitations-scope-plan.md

when creating

paper/.agent/limitations-scope-plan.md

.

Read local

paper/.agent/writing-contract.md

,

paper/.agent/writing-memory/

,

paper/.agent/paper-evidence-board.md

,

paper/.agent/experiment-story-plan.md

,

paper/.agent/provisional-results.md

, review-risk notes, and current draft sections when present.

Core Principles

A limitation should define the boundary of the claim, not apologize for the paper existing.
Be specific about affected settings, assumptions, data, metrics, compute, users, or deployment contexts.
Pair each limitation with its consequence for interpretation.
Do not bury limitations that contradict a main claim; narrow the claim or route to diagnosis.
Do not invent mitigations, future work, or ethics safeguards that the project does not support.
Scope language should appear wherever the paper might otherwise overclaim: abstract, intro, results, limitations, and conclusion.
Limitations should be consistent with the evidence board and writing contract.

Step 1 - Build Scope Snapshot

Extract:

markdown

## Limitations Scope Snapshot
- Target venue:
- Paper archetype:
- Main claims:
- Supported scope:
- Known limitations:
- Failure cases:
- Mixed or negative results:
- Dataset/benchmark constraints:
- Compute/system constraints:
- Human/domain/deployment risks:
- Ethics or broader-impact requirements:
- Claims needing downgrade:

If a limitation undermines the primary claim, route to

result-diagnosis

,

paper-positioning-planner

, or

paper-evidence-board

before writing final text.

Step 2 - Classify Limitations

Read

references/limitation-patterns.md

and classify each limitation:

data or benchmark scope
model or method assumption
metric or evaluation scope
compute or scale constraint
generalization boundary
failure mode
human/domain/deployment constraint
theoretical assumption
artifact or reproducibility constraint

For each limitation, decide whether it requires:

local wording only
claim downgrade
new experiment
related-work repositioning
ethics/broader-impact text
reviewer-risk follow-up

Step 3 - Create Scope Plan

Create or update:

text

paper/.agent/limitations-scope-plan.md

If there is no

paper/

directory and the current directory is the paper repo, save to:

text

.agent/limitations-scope-plan.md

Use

templates/limitations-scope-plan.md

.

For each limitation, record:

affected claim
evidence source
wording consequence
paper locations needing scope language

Step 4 - Draft or Revise Limitation Text

For each limitation paragraph:

state the limitation concretely
identify the affected scope
explain how it changes interpretation
preserve what the paper still establishes
optionally name a realistic future direction

Avoid vague phrases such as "more work is needed" unless the needed work is specified.

Step 5 - Propagate Scope

Limitations often require edits outside the limitations section. Check:

title
abstract
contribution bullets
introduction claims
result interpretation
captions
conclusion

If a scope correction affects top-level prose, route to

abstract-title-contribution-writer

or

paper-draft-consistency-editor

.

Step 6 - Final Checks

Before finalizing:

limitations are specific and evidence-grounded
no limitation silently contradicts the main claim
scope language appears in all high-risk locations
failure cases are explained rather than hidden
ethics/broader-impact text does not overpromise safeguards
future work is realistic and not used to cover missing required evidence
reviewer-risk follow-ups are explicit
scope and limitation changes are written back through
```
paper-writing-memory-manager
```

limitations-scope-writer

NPX Install

Tags

SKILL.md Content

Limitations Scope Writer

Skill Directory Layout

Progressive Loading

Core Principles

Step 1 - Build Scope Snapshot

Step 2 - Classify Limitations

Step 3 - Create Scope Plan

Step 4 - Draft or Revise Limitation Text

Step 5 - Propagate Scope

Step 6 - Final Checks