/light-venue-matching

name: light-venue-matching
description: Build evidence-bound journal or conference shortlists for Light stage 12. Use after typesetting delivers venue-handoff.json/PDF/compliance facts; when an author asks where to submit, journal selection, conference fit, scope or article-type matching, publication strategy, reach/match/safety tiers, transfer order, APC/OA/indexing/deadline constraints, or predatory/hijacked-journal risk. Produces a current-source candidate registry, fit/risk/unknown reports, and an unchosen decision packet; never recompiles the PDF, invents acceptance rates, condemns a venue from soft signals, chooses without a direct user choice or explicit delegation, or submits.

Venue matching · stage 12

Turn a delivered paper into an auditable venue decision. Read `venue-resource-map.md` before a real run and `references/workflow_contract.md` before producing or consuming JSON. Use `references.md` to choose current sources. Start from `templates/venue_input.json`; never start from model memory or a bundled venue list.

Non-negotiable boundaries

1. Consume typesetting's `venue-handoff.json`. Verify its PDF path/hash, `DELIVERED`, pages, page size, profile/source, compliance `PASS`, and zero critical findings. Preserve paper/figure/citation/typesetting provenance. Do not compile, reformat, inspect page boxes again, or treat stage-11 `UNAVAILABLE` as compliance. 2. Consume paper-writing's manuscript/claim profile through `manuscript_profile.claims_delivery` with a safe relative path, schema, and SHA-256. Do not change claims, methods, results, article type, data scale, or evidence strength to make a venue fit. Citation owns reference authenticity; figure owns visual honesty. 3. Treat acceptance rate, review time, APC/OA, indexing, quartile, and CFP deadline as high-velocity fields. Require a source checked on the run date. Otherwise emit `UNKNOWN`, `UNAVAILABLE`, or `STALE`; never use memory. `AVAILABLE` sources must carry an auditable locator (`url`, `query`, `locator`, or `path`), `checked_at`, `access_tier`, and `authority`. Official rules/fees/deadlines require official/publisher/venue authority; indexing and quartile require index/registry authority. 4. Treat 403/429/5xx, missing key/login/subscription, robots denial, and source outage as `UNAVAILABLE`. They do not mean “not indexed,” “not in DOAJ,” “free,” or “risky.” 5. Keep predatory/hijacked signals as visible warnings pending current, multi-source human review. DOAJ absence, high APC, fast review, unsolicited email, unusual volume, or one archived list is not a final verdict. 6. Never estimate an acceptance percentage or convert fit into acceptance probability. Use official current acceptance figures only with source/date; otherwise `acceptance_likelihood.status=UNKNOWN`. 7. Keep `decision_point=true` and `chosen=null` through candidate discovery, evidence collection, ranking, and delivery. Stop and ask the user to choose. Only an explicit `light.venue_user_selection.v1` may create a selected handoff. Record a direct choice as `actor=user`; if the user explicitly delegates the choice, preserve the authorization verbatim and use `actor=agent_with_user_authorization`, `decision_authority=user`. Never submit. Every selection artifact must include timezone-aware `selected_at` and the user's stated trade-off in `because`. Bind the choice to the exact reviewed packet with `decision_sha256`; a changed packet or any changed registry/evidence/fit artifact requires a new review and selection. 8. Do not invent `STAGE_GATES[12]`, `ROUTES[12]`, a confirmation checkpoint, critical findings, or a back-edge. Stage 12 is a user decision point with no configured gate or route edge.

Workflow

1. Consume the real submission artifact

Require `light.typesetting_venue_handoff.v1`. Run prepare only when:

• `status=DELIVERED`;
• `compliance_status=PASS` and `critical_count=0`;
• the PDF exists and its SHA-256 matches;
• the compliance report exists and agrees on page facts.

If any condition fails, return an input error and route the author to stage 11 without creating a stage-12 critical finding.

2. Capture the author constraints

Record, without filling gaps yourself:

• research direction, article type, methods, data scale, claims/evidence;
• author stage, region, required indexes, OA requirement, APC ceiling;
• hard submission deadline and acceptable review duration;
• reach/match/safety preference and transfer strategy;
• unacceptable venues, publishers, business models, or risks.

Mark each constraint as hard or soft. A hard author constraint can exclude; a soft preference changes order and explanation. Bind the claim/evidence profile to the current paper-writing artifact via `claims_delivery.path + sha256 + schema`; a hand-typed manuscript profile is not enough for stage 12.

3. Discover for recall, then verify for precision

Keep the unpublished manuscript local. Before any public or externally authenticated search, translate it into author-approved broad field/method-family terms and preflight the outgoing queries:

python scripts/query_privacy_gate.py `
  --input templates/query-privacy.example.json

Do not send the unpublished title, abstract, exact hypotheses, unique method or dataset names, result sentences, tables, or figures to a public search engine. The preflight report intentionally retains only query hashes and match categories. Its PASS detects supplied phrase overlap; it cannot prove anonymity or rule out re-identification.

Use the author's candidate list, current official CFPs, publisher finders, and `venue_discovery.py`:

python scripts/venue_discovery.py `
  --query "author-approved broad field and method family" --rows 50 --out discovery.json

Crossref container frequency only discovers candidates. It does not establish scope, rank, indexing, safety, or quality.