review-render

review-render

A rendered resume has defects that are invisible in the JSON and only show up on the page — a bullet wrapping with two dangling words, a half-empty page, content spilling one line onto page 2, an orphaned section header. This skill closes the loop the way a human does: make it, look at it, fix it, repeat — bounded so it always terminates.

Architecture split (see ../../_shared/RULES.md): rendercv renders; this skill (the brain) judges and decides the fix. Rendering levers live in render-resume; the visual judgment and content edits live here.

render-resume hands off to this skill as its mandatory final step (its §6 Self-QA) — so every resume is visually QA'd, not just ones where someone remembers to ask. You can also invoke it standalone on any existing rendered resume.

Inputs

• The JSON-Resume intermediate: resumes/<name>.json (the editable source of content fixes).
• The output PDF path: resumes/<name>.pdf.
• Optional: target --max-pages, --theme (else from meta.theme).

The loop (max 3 passes — never loop forever)

1. Render with page PNGs

python3 skills/render-resume/scripts/render.py \
    --data resumes/<name>.json --out resumes/<name>.pdf --emit-png \
    [--max-pages 1|2] [--theme T] [--date-col 3.3cm] [--density snug|compact|dense|tight]

This writes the PDF plus resumes/<name>.p1.png, .p2.png, ….

2. Deterministic gate (cheap — no vision tokens)

skills/render-resume/.venv/bin/python skills/render-resume/scripts/qa_report.py resumes/<name>.p*.png

Returns {pages, page_fills, last_page_fill, flags}. Flags: underfilled, sparse_last_page, overflow_risk.

3. Vision rubric — Read each .pN.png and score it against reference/rubric.md. Record each issue as {dimension, severity (critical/major/minor), where, suggested fix}.

4. Decide

• PASS when the deterministic flags are empty and the rubric has no critical/major issue (score ≥ 90). Report and stop.
• Otherwise pick the single highest-severity issue, apply exactly one fix from the vocabulary below, and go back to step 1.
• After 3 passes, stop regardless; report the best version + any residual issues and a recommendation.

5. Clean up the .pN.png files (and any .rendercv.yaml) unless the caller asked to keep them.

Fix vocabulary (issue → lever)

Apply ONE per pass, then re-render and re-judge — never stack blind changes.

Issue	Fix (try in this order)
Widow / overflow line (bullet wraps, 1–2 words dangle)	--date-col 3.3cm (more bullet width). If it persists, tighten that specific bullet in the JSON by 3–6 words — preserve meaning and keep the metric.
Underfilled single page (underfilled, bottom whitespace)	Restore a previously-cut bullet/section to the JSON (preferred — recovers lost context), or force a lighter density (--density snug/compact).
Spills to 2 pages, sparse last page (sparse_last_page / overflow_risk)	If content is ~1 page: trim the lowest-value bullet(s) per tailor-resume's rubric, or --max-pages 1 to densify. If genuinely 1.5+ pages: --max-pages 2 and rebalance so the last page is >50% full.
Orphaned section header at page bottom	Step density one notch, or trim/restore one line to shift the break.
Inconsistent dates / bullet glyphs / tense	Fix in the JSON (formatting) — not a renderer concern.
Section imbalance or wrong order	Reorder/rebalance sections in the JSON.

Rules

• One fix per pass. Re-render and re-evaluate before the next change.
• No fabrication. "Tighten" = cut words, never invent. Content edits obey tailor-resume's rubric and _shared/RULES.md (incl. never quoting context.*).
• Always terminates. Hard cap of 3 passes; if still failing, stop and recommend (e.g., "content is genuinely two pages — use --max-pages 2").
• Layout first, content second. Prefer a rendering lever (date-col, density) before editing real content, so context isn't lost to cosmetics.

Output

A concise QA report: PASS/FAIL, final score, the iteration log (per pass: what the gate + rubric flagged → the one fix applied → the new result), and the final PDF path.

Next steps

Resume passed QA. Next: /write-cover-letter, then apply — or /apply-to-job to finish the package.