colt-writing-style
Use when revising a COLT (Conference on Learning Theory) paper for theorem-first exposition — formal setup before results, informal-then-formal theorem statements, proof overviews that sell the technique, quantifier and constant hygiene, and fitting the argument's spine into 12 PMLR-formatted pages.
Profile →npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill colt-writing-style --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# COLT Writing Style Use this when revising prose and mathematics for COLT. The style target is a paper a learning theorist can referee efficiently: the model is unambiguous by page 3, the main theorem is quotable in one breath, and the proof overview convinces the reader the technique is new before the appendix is opened. ## The COLT first-pages arc 1. **Problem in the field's own vocabulary** — regret, sample complexity, minimax risk, oracle complexity, mistake bound — within the first paragraphs. 2. **What was known**: the best prior upper and lower bounds, with citations, ideally as an inline mini-table when three or more results interact. 3. **The new result, informally**: "we close this gap up to log factors" / "we show the two models are not equivalent" — one sentence, no notation debt. 4. **The formal setup**: complete model, protocol, and assumptions, before any formal theorem. COLT readers refuse theorems whose objects are undefined. 5. **Main theorems, then the technique paragraph**: what the proof does that prior arguments could not, named honestly (a new potential function, a reduction, a coupling, a lower-bound instance family). ## Informal/formal pairing State import
- The COLT first-pages arc
- Informal/formal pairing
- Sentence-level repairs
- Quantifier and constant hygiene
- Budgeting 12 pages
- Abstract formula
- Tone and culture notes
- Anonymity phrasing
- Output format
What does the colt-writing-style skill do?
Use when revising a COLT (Conference on Learning Theory) paper for theorem-first exposition — formal setup before results, informal-then-formal theorem statements, proof overviews that sell the technique, quantifier and constant hygiene, and fitting the argument's spine into 12 PMLR-formatted pages.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill colt-writing-style --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills, a repository with 909 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.