A set of rules for creating scientific figures with Python or R plotting tools for journals such as Nature, Cell, and Science. It covers layout, colors, print sizes, and preferred output formats.

Use it when writing matplotlib, ggplot2, or ComplexHeatmap code for academic figures. It guides palette selection, figure sizing, borders, legends, and raster or vector output.

It provides consistent publication-oriented choices for figures instead of relying on default chart styles. It also helps keep figures readable in print and suitable for scientific papers.

cursorrules — Cursor rule for Cursor by TingxiYu: A set of rules for creating scientific figures with…

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods

npx agentmods add rules/tingxiyu/academic-figure-skill/cursorrules

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/TingxiYu/academic-figure-skill

Made for: Cursor.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/tingxiyu/academic-figure-skill/cursorrules.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/rules/tingxiyu/academic-figure-skill/cursorrules)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/rules/tingxiyu/academic-figure-skill/cursorrules"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/tingxiyu/academic-figure-skill/cursorrules.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Per session 1,515 This file is loaded in full into every session.

When invoked 1,515 The same file — it is already loaded in full.

Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.

Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.

Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

Model	Per session	Once invoked
Fable 5	$0.01515	$0.01515
Opus 5	$0.00758	$0.00758
Sonnet 5	$0.00303	$0.00303
Haiku 4.5	$0.00152	$0.00152

Measured 4d ago against content hash 48c4434c0822, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

cursorrules scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 4d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

install/cursor/.cursorrules · 134 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 134 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Academic Figure Skill — Scientific Figure Making Rules

Place this file at: /.cursorrules

Cursor auto-loads it. Generated: 2026-07-05 13:39 UTC

You are helping create scientific figures for Nature/Cell/Science journals. Follow these rules when writing matplotlib/ggplot2/ComplexHeatmap code.

Academic Figure Skill Portable Core Rules

Auto-generated from academic-figure-skill/SKILL.md — 2026-07-05 13:39 UTC

These rules work across Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and Copilot.

Design Principles

One figure, one core message. Remove gridlines, borders, and redundant legends.
Restrained color > abundant color. Use 2-4 semantic colors + 1 accent. Never default palettes.
Design for print, not screen. Single column 89mm, double column 183mm.
Vector first, raster fallback. PDF/SVG/EPS for line art; TIFF/PNG (≥300dpi) for raster.

Color Palette — COPY VERBATIM

# Academic Figure Skill Nature/Cell/Science Color Palette -- COPY VERBATIM
CATEGORICAL = ["#2166AC", "#B2182B", "#1B7837", "#F1A340", "#762A83", "#666666"]
CATEGORICAL_EXTENDED = [
    "#2166AC", "#B2182B", "#1B7837", "#F1A340", "#762A83", "#666666",
    "#4393C3", "#D6604D", "#5AAE61", "#B35806", "#9970AB", "#999999",
]
DIVERGING   = ["#2166AC", "#F7F7F7", "#B2182B"]
SEQUENTIAL  = ["#F7FBFF", "#6BAED6", "#08306B"]
ACCENT_RED  = "#B2182B"
GREY        = "#999999"
BLACK       = "#222222"

# Academic Figure Skill Nature/Cell/Science Color Palette -- COPY VERBATIM
categorical <- c("#2166AC", "#B2182B", "#1B7837", "#F1A340", "#762A83", "#666666")
categorical_extended <- c(
  "#2166AC", "#B2182B", "#1B7837", "#F1A340", "#762A83", "#666666",
  "#4393C3", "#D6604D", "#5AAE61", "#B35806", "#9970AB", "#999999"
)
diverging  <- c("#2166AC", "#F7F7F7", "#B2182B")
sequential <- c("#F7FBFF", "#6BAED6", "#08306B")
accent_red <- "#B2182B"
grey       <- "#999999"
black      <- "#222222"

Color roles: Blue (#2166AC) = control/baseline. Red (#B2182B) = emphasis/up-regulated. Green (#1B7837) = treatment/recovery. Grey (#999999/#666666) = background/non-significant. Never use jet/rainbow or default matplotlib/seaborn palettes.

Read the full file on GitHub · 134 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

4d ago First seen · 134 lines · 1,515 tokens per session scan A 48c4434c0822

Subscribe to this mod's changes

cursorrules is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository TingxiYu/academic-figure-skill (323 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 1,515 tokens to every session, about $0.0076 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

Scientific

cursorrules