ylj-footnotes-and-cite-check
Use when running the final footnote-apparatus audit of a The Yale Law Journal (YLJ) piece — verifying every cite exists, is pinpointed, is correct Bluebook form, and actually supports its sentence, in preparation for (or during) the student source-pull. It verifies; it does not construct new cites (ylj-sources-and-bluebook).
Profile →npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill ylj-footnotes-and-cite-check --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.
# Footnotes & Cite-Check (ylj-footnotes-and-cite-check) The heavy-footnote apparatus is what distinguishes legal scholarship, and YLJ's **source-pull** verifies every footnote by hand. This skill runs the same audit *you* should run before submission and again during editing, so the piece survives source-pull cleanly. It verifies an existing apparatus; building cites is `ylj-sources-and-bluebook`, and the editorial cycle that triggers source-pull is `ylj-revision-and-editing`. ## When to trigger - Final pass before submission — the apparatus must be source-pull-ready - Answering source-pull author queries during the editing cycle - A reader or editor flagged a cite that may not support its sentence - Reconciling short forms (`id.`, `supra`) and cross-references after heavy revision ## The four-point cite test (every footnote) 1. **Existence.** The source is real and retrievable (case in the reporter, statute in the code, article in the journal). Dead or invented cites are the gravest source-pull failure. 2. **Support.** The cited page/section actually says what the sentence claims. The cite-doesn't-support failure is the most common — read the pinpoint, not just the source's headno
- When to trigger
- The four-point cite test (every footnote)
- Apparatus-wide consistency sweep
- Risk-ordered audit pass
- Quotation and integrity audit
- Pre-empt the source-pull
- Checklist
- Anti-patterns
- Output format
- Supplementary resources
What does the ylj-footnotes-and-cite-check skill do?
Use when running the final footnote-apparatus audit of a The Yale Law Journal (YLJ) piece — verifying every cite exists, is pinpointed, is correct Bluebook form, and actually supports its sentence, in preparation for (or during) the student source-pull. It verifies; it does not construct new cites (ylj-sources-and-bluebook).
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill ylj-footnotes-and-cite-check --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.