/aeri-workflow

name: aeri-workflow
description: Use when deciding which aeri-* sub-skill to invoke next, or when sequencing work on a short-format manuscript from topic selection through the conditional-accept response for an American Economic Review: Insights (AER: Insights) submission. Routes — it does not replace — the specialized skills.

AER: Insights Workflow Router (aeri-workflow)

Overview

This is the router. It tells you **which aeri-* skill to use at the current stage** of a manuscript aimed at *American Economic Review: Insights* (AER: Insights) — the AEA's **short-format**, general-interest journal (founded 2019) for papers built around **ONE clear, important, well-executed idea**, empirical, theoretical, or methodological. The bar is **AER-level importance compressed into a short paper**. AER: Insights is the short sibling of the *American Economic Review* (long, multi-result, flagship) and is general-interest, unlike the field-oriented full papers of the *AEJ* family.

Default assumption: unless the user says otherwise, treat the target as AER: Insights. The two operational tells that you are at AER: Insights and not AER or an AEJ: (1) a **hard length cap** — main text **≤7,000 words with no exhibits, minus 200 words per exhibit, maximum five exhibits**, abstract **≤100 words** — papers over the cap are returned unreviewed; (2) a **single insight** must carry the whole paper, with everything secondary pushed to the online Supplemental Appendix. Process tells: AEA **single-blind** review that is **fast and decisive — no traditional revise-and-resubmit; first decisions are conditional accept or reject**, and conditional accepts (usually an 8-week window) are normally **not** sent back to referees. Editor as of 2026: **Matthew Gentzkow** (lead editor beginning January 2024; founding editor Amy Finkelstein). Live-check volatile specifics on the official AEA pages.

When to trigger

• The user asks "what should I do next?"
• A draft is over the word/exhibit cap or is sprawling into multiple results
• Work is ping-ponging between the core result, framing, exhibits, and the response letter
• An AER: Insights decision letter (conditional accept or reject) arrived

Routing table

| Current symptom | Next skill | |-----------------|------------| | Paper has several results / no single crisp insight; fit to short format unclear | `aeri-topic-selection` | | Contribution vs. the closest published work is fuzzy or oversold | `aeri-literature-positioning` | | The causal or parameter identification is shaky | `aeri-identification` | | A model is present but bloated, or unclear what it must minimally show | `aeri-theory-model` | | Robustness is sprawling; unclear what stays in-text vs. appendix | `aeri-robustness` | | Over the five-exhibit budget; exhibits are dense or carry significance asterisks | `aeri-tables-figures` | | Prose buries the result; abstract/intro do not lead with it; over word cap | `aeri-writing-style` | | Data/code deposit, README, or AEA Data Editor prep | `aeri-replication-package` | | Want to understand the fast review / conditional-accept-vs-reject odds | `aeri-referee-strategy` | | Ready to submit via the AEA portal; need a preflight | `aeri-submission` | | Received a conditional accept; need a short, decisive response | `aeri-rebuttal` |

Default order

1. `aeri-topic-selection` — confirm ONE crisp, important, well-identified insight that stands alone 2. `aeri-literature-positioning` — stake the contribution in one or two paragraphs 3. `aeri-identification` — make the design or parameter identification clean and self-contained 4. `aeri-theory-model` — keep only the model the single insight requires 5. `aeri-robustness` — the few in-text checks that matter; rest to the appendix 6. `aeri-tables-figures` — at most five exhibits, no significance asterisks 7. `aeri-writing-style` — lead with the result; enforce the word budget (abstract + intro last) 8. `aeri-replication-package` — assemble the AEA-compliant data/code package 9. `aeri-referee-strategy` — calibrate expectations for the fast, decisive process 10. `aeri-submission` — AEA portal preflight (word count + exhibit count) 11. `aeri-rebuttal` — after the conditional accept

> `aeri-writing-style` is a late-stage polish, but the word cap is a constraint from day one — track it throughout, not at the end.

Anti-patterns

• Treating AER: Insights like a short AER: keeping a second and third result instead of cutting to one
• Letting `aeri-tables-figures` polish a sixth exhibit that should not exist
• Skipping `aeri-replication-package` until acceptance — the AEA Data Editor checks **before** publication
• Planning for a multi-round R&R that AER: Insights does not offer

Routing by paper archetype

The single insight differs by archetype; enter the chain at the right link.

| Archetype | Likely first bottleneck | Enter at | |-----------|-------------------------|----------| | one clean causal estimate (DiD / RDD / IV / experiment) | is the design credible AND is it a single headline number? | `aeri-topic-selection` → `aeri-identification` | | a sharp theoretical result / impossibility | is the model minimal and the result surprising? | `aeri-theory-model` | | a methodological point with one application | does the method change a substantive answer in few pages? | `aeri-identification` → `aeri-robustness` | | a striking new fact / measurement | is the fact important enough to stand alone, and robust? | `aeri-topic-selection` → `aeri-robustness` |

Worked routing example (illustrative)

A user says: "My field experiment has a clean main effect, but I also estimated three heterogeneity splits and a structural extension, and the draft is 9,500 words." That is the canonical AER: Insights problem — *one good insight buried under a multi-result, over-cap paper*. Route first to `aeri-topic-selection` to confirm the single headline effect is the paper, then `aeri-robustness` and `aeri-tables-figures` to move