prl-length-management
Use when a Physical Review Letters manuscript exceeds the strict deductible length limit, where figures, equations, and references all count against the budget. Triages what to cut, compress, or move to Supplemental Material; does not rewrite content from scratch.
Profile →npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill prl-length-management --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.
# PRL Length Management (prl-length-management) ## When to trigger - The manuscript is over the length limit (or you suspect it is) - You need to know how much "room" a figure or equation actually costs - You must decide what to cut, compress, or push to Supplemental Material - A reviewer/editor flagged the Letter as too long - Late stage: content, figures, and SM are stable and now must fit ## How the PRL length limit works (the deductible model) A Letter is **short** — on the order of ~3750 words / roughly four journal pages including figures and references; **verify the current limit on the APS author page.** The key feature is that the limit is a **deductible budget**: it is not just running text. Against the same total budget you must count, in current APS practice: - The body text (the largest term). - **Figures** — each figure consumes word-equivalents that scale with its printed area / aspect ratio; a large or double-column figure costs more. - **Equations** — displayed equations consume word-equivalents (roughly per line/equation). - **References** — the reference list counts against the budget. - The abstract and table material also count. APS provides a formula / length
- When to trigger
- How the PRL length limit works (the deductible model)
- Triage order (cut from cheapest loss to most painful)
- Cost-awareness table
- Checklist
- Anti-patterns
- Output format
What does the prl-length-management skill do?
Use when a Physical Review Letters manuscript exceeds the strict deductible length limit, where figures, equations, and references all count against the budget. Triages what to cut, compress, or move to Supplemental Material; does not rewrite content from scratch.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill prl-length-management --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.