Cell Workflow Router (cell-workflow)

Overview

This is the router. It does not replace any specialized skill. It tells you which cell- skill to use at the current stage* of a manuscript aimed at Cell (Cell Press).

Default assumption: unless the user states otherwise, the target is Cell (the flagship), not Molecular Cell, Cell Reports, Cell Reports Medicine, Developmental Cell, or other Cell Press titles. The family shares STAR Methods, Highlights, eTOC, and Graphical Abstract conventions, but differs sharply on scope and breadth — flag the difference if the user names a sibling.

The single most important idea about Cell

Cell does not publish a single striking observation. It publishes a complete, mechanistic, hypothesis-driven story: a conceptual advance supported by multiple independent lines of evidence that converge on a mechanism. Descriptive or single-result papers are desk-rejected. Route to cell-fit first, always.

When to trigger

• "What should I do next with this draft?"
• A draft arrives and you must diagnose the current bottleneck.
• The user is switching between experiments, writing, and revision and has lost the thread.
• Reviews arrive from Cell and you need to switch into rebuttal mode.

The single most important gate

Cell editors reject most submissions before review. The bar is conceptual advance + mechanistic completeness, not technical correctness alone. The first question is never "is the science right?" — it is "is this a complete, mechanistic story a broad life-sciences readership will care about?" Route to cell-fit first.

Routing table

Default order

1. cell-fit — clear the complete-mechanistic-story bar first
2. cell-framing — lock the single narrative arc (hypothesis → mechanism → significance)
3. cell-writing — Article structure and length discipline
4. cell-figures — finalize display items within budget
5. cell-star-methods — Key Resources Table + Resource Availability + QSA
6. cell-data — data / code deposition and the availability statement
7. cell-summary — the ≤150-word Summary (late polish)
8. cell-highlights — Highlights + eTOC blurb + Graphical Abstract (late polish)
9. cell-citation — author–date reference pass
10. cell-submission — cover letter + preflight
11. cell-rebuttal — after review

cell-summary, cell-highlights, and cell-citation are late-stage polish. Do not perfect the Highlights before the story and figures are settled.

Decision shortcuts

• "We have one striking result but no mechanism" → cell-fit (likely not yet a Cell story)
• "The paper reads like three separate mini-papers" → cell-framing
• "I have no Graphical Abstract / my Highlights are full sentences" → cell-highlights
• "My Methods is a free-text section" → cell-star-methods (Cell uses STAR Methods)
• "My antibodies/strains/software aren't tabulated" → cell-star-methods (Key Resources Table)
• "My refs are numbered by appearance" → cell-citation (Cell is author–date)
• "No GEO/PDB accession yet" → cell-data

How Cell differs from its siblings and from Nature/Science

• Cell vs Molecular Cell: Molecular Cell wants the same rigor focused on a molecular mechanism in a narrower domain (gene expression, DNA/RNA, signaling, proteostasis). If the broad cross-field implication is thin but the molecular mechanism is deep, route to Molecular Cell.
• Cell vs Cell Reports: Cell Reports is more accepting — solid, complete, but less broadly transformative work fits there. A common, honest outcome.
• Cell vs Cell Reports Medicine: translational / clinically oriented complete stories.
• Cell vs Nature/Science: all three gate on broad significance, but Cell most explicitly demands mechanistic completeness ("a complete story") and uses author–date references (opposite of Science's numbered-by-appearance), a Summary (not a one-sentence summary), Highlights, an eTOC/In Brief blurb, a Graphical Abstract, and STAR Methods. Do not port a Nature/Science manuscript over without these conversions.

Stage tracker (fill and re-run the router)

Keep this manifest with your draft; the top unfinished row names the skill to invoke next. The gate row must clear before any polish row is touched.

CELL MANUSCRIPT — stage tracker
one-line story : [hypothesis → mechanism → why a broad readership cares]
sibling check  : Cell vs Molecular Cell / Cell Reports / Cell Reports Medicine

stage                         status        next skill
----------------------------  ------------  -------------------
GATE: complete mechanistic    [in-progress] cell-fit
      story, broad interest
narrative arc                 [todo]        cell-framing
article text + length         [todo]        cell-writing
figure budget                 [todo]        cell-figures
STAR Methods + KRT + QSA      [todo]        cell-star-methods
data / code deposition        [todo]        cell-data
Summary (≤150 words)          [todo]        cell-summary       (late)
Highlights / eTOC / GA        [todo]        cell-highlights    (late)
author–date references        [todo]        cell-citation      (late)
cover letter + preflight      [todo]        cell-submission
reviews / revision            [—]           cell-rebuttal

rule: if the GATE row is not [done], every row below stays frozen.

Anti-patterns

• Do not skip cell-fit and start polishing prose — the modal outcome is pre-review rejection.
• Do not build the Graphical Abstract before the narrative arc is locked in cell-framing.
• Do not treat Methods as a free-text section — Cell requires STAR Methods.
• Do not generate a rebuttal before the main text and new experiments are actually done.

All conventions here are working defaults — confirm against current Cell Press author guidelines.