Exp Lens Reproducibility Artifacts

Reproducibility Artifacts Experimental Design Lens

Philosophical Mode: Transparency Primary Question: "Could an independent party reproduce this?" Focus: Run Instructions, Environment Capture, Data Availability, Determinism Controls, Audit Trail

When to Use

• Evaluating reproducibility of computational experiments
• Auditing artifact completeness
• Checking for undocumented dependencies
• User invokes /exp-lens-reproducibility-artifacts or /make-experiment-diag reproducibility

Critical Constraints

NEVER:

• Modify any source code files
• Do not litter the codebase with useless comments, TODO markers, or explanatory annotations — the skill output and diagram speak for themselves

ALWAYS:

• Trace the full chain from "clone repo" to "reproduce figures"
• Classify every artifact as available/unavailable and versioned/floating
• Identify the weakest link in the reproduction chain
• Flag all silent non-determinism risks
• BEFORE creating any diagram, LOAD the /mermaid skill using the Skill tool - this is MANDATORY

---

Analysis Workflow

Step 1: Launch Parallel Exploration Subagents

Spawn Explore subagents to investigate:

Environment & Dependencies

• Find dependency files, container definitions, environment setup
• Look for: requirements, Dockerfile, environment.yml, conda, pip, nix, lock

Data Provenance

• Find data download scripts, checksums, versioning
• Look for: download, checksum, hash, version, dvc, data_url, manifest

Execution Entry Points

• Find run scripts, Makefiles, workflow managers
• Look for: Makefile, run.sh, snakemake, nextflow, main, entrypoint, cli

Random Seed & Determinism

• Find seed setting, nondeterminism controls
• Look for: seed, random_state, deterministic, cudnn, PYTHONHASHSEED

Output Artifacts & Logging

• Find result storage, logging, figure generation
• Look for: save, log, output, results, figures, checkpoint, wandb, mlflow

Step 2: Map the Reproduction Chain

Map the full chain from "clone repo" to "reproduce figures." Identify each link:

• Is it documented?
• Is it automated?
• Is it deterministic?
• What is the weakest link?

Step 3: Classify Each Artifact Dependency

CRITICAL — Analyze Reproduction Chain: For every artifact dependency:

• Is the source available (open vs gated)?
• Is the version pinned or floating?
• Is the transform deterministic?
• Could silent environment differences change results?

Assign a status of Pass, Warn, or Fail to each link in the chain based on reproducibility confidence.

Step 4: Create the Diagram

Use flowchart with:

Direction: LR (reproduction chain flows left to right)

Subgraphs:

• SOURCE CODE
• ENVIRONMENT
• DATA
• EXECUTION
• OUTPUTS

Node Styling:

• cli class: Entry points and run commands
• stateNode class: Versioned and pinned artifacts
• handler class: Transforms and scripts
• output class: Results and figures
• gap class: Missing or undocumented links
• detector class: Checksum and validation gates
• phase class: External dependencies

Edge Labels: pinned, floating, deterministic, nondeterministic, gated

Step 5: Write Output

Write the diagram to: temp/exp-lens-reproducibility-artifacts/exp_diag_reproducibility_artifacts_{YYYY-MM-DD_HHMMSS}.md

---

Output Template

# Reproducibility Artifacts Diagram: {Experiment Name}

**Lens:** Reproducibility Artifacts (Transparency)
**Question:** Could an independent party reproduce this?
**Date:** {YYYY-MM-DD}
**Scope:** {What was analyzed}

## Artifact Inventory

| Artifact | Available? | Versioned? | Deterministic? |
|----------|------------|------------|----------------|
| {artifact} | {Yes/No/Gated} | {Pinned/Floating/None} | {Yes/No/Unknown} |

## Reproduction Chain Diagram

```mermaid
%%{init: {'flowchart': {'nodeSpacing': 50, 'rankSpacing': 60, 'curve': 'basis'}}}%%
flowchart LR
    %% CLASS DEFINITIONS %%
    classDef cli fill:#1a237e,stroke:#7986cb,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff;
    classDef stateNode fill:#004d40,stroke:#4db6ac,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff;
    classDef handler fill:#e65100,stroke:#ffb74d,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff;
    classDef phase fill:#6a1b9a,stroke:#ba68c8,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff;
    classDef newComponent fill:#2e7d32,stroke:#81c784,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff;
    classDef output fill:#00695c,stroke:#4db6ac,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff;
    classDef detector fill:#b71c1c,stroke:#ef5350,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff;
    classDef gap fill:#ff6f00,stroke:#ffa726,stroke-width:2px,color:#000;
    classDef integration fill:#c62828,stroke:#ef9a9a,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff;

    subgraph Source ["SOURCE CODE"]
        REPO["Git Repository━━━━━━━━━━Commit hashBranch"]
        ENTRY["Entry Point━━━━━━━━━━run.sh / Makefile"]
    end

    subgraph Env ["ENVIRONMENT"]
        DEPS["Dependencies━━━━━━━━━━requirements.txt / lock"]
        MISSING["Undocumented Dep━━━━━━━━━━No version pin"]
        EXTDEP["External Service━━━━━━━━━━API / cloud resource"]
    end

    subgraph Data ["DATA"]
        RAW["Raw Dataset━━━━━━━━━━Checksum available?"]
        CHKSUM["Checksum Gate━━━━━━━━━━sha256 / md5"]
        GATED["Gated Dataset━━━━━━━━━━Access required"]
    end

    subgraph Exec ["EXECUTION"]
        SEED["Seed Control━━━━━━━━━━PYTHONHASHSEEDrandom_state"]
        SCRIPT["Pipeline Script━━━━━━━━━━Deterministic?"]
    end

    subgraph Outputs ["OUTPUTS"]
        RESULTS["Results / Metrics━━━━━━━━━━Logged?"]
        FIGS["Figures━━━━━━━━━━Reproducible?"]
    end

    %% REPRODUCTION CHAIN %%
    REPO -->|"pinned"| ENTRY
    ENTRY -->|"loads"| DEPS
    DEPS -.->|"floating"| MISSING
    MISSING -.->|"nondeterministic"| SCRIPT
    EXTDEP -->|"gated"| SCRIPT
    RAW -->|"verify"| CHKSUM
    CHKSUM -->|"deterministic"| SCRIPT
    GATED -.->|"gated"| SCRIPT
    SEED -->|"controls"| SCRIPT
    SCRIPT -->|"produces"| RESULTS
    SCRIPT -->|"generates"| FIGS

    %% CLASS ASSIGNMENTS %%
    class REPO,ENTRY cli;
    class DEPS,RAW stateNode;
    class SCRIPT,SEED handler;
    class EXTDEP phase;
    class RESULTS,FIGS output;
    class CHKSUM detector;
    class MISSING,GATED gap;

Color Legend: | Color | Category | Description | |-------|----------|-------------| | Dark Blue | Entry Point | Run commands and source code | | Teal | Versioned Artifact | Pinned dependencies and checksummed data | | Orange | Transform / Script | Pipeline scripts and execution steps | | Purple | External Dependency | External services and APIs | | Dark Teal | Output | Results, metrics, and figures | | Red | Validation Gate | Checksum and integrity checks | | Amber | Missing Link | Undocumented or gated dependencies |

Reproduction Checklist

Step-by-step instructions with pass/fail status:

• [ ] Clone repository at pinned commit
• [ ] Reproduce environment from lock/container file
• [ ] Download data and verify checksums
• [ ] Set all random seeds as documented
• [ ] Execute pipeline via documented entry point
• [ ] Compare output metrics/figures to reported values

Weakest Links

| Link | Issue | Severity | Recommendation | |------|-------|----------|----------------| | {link} | {undocumented/gated/floating/nondeterministic} | {High/Medium/Low} | {action} |

---

## Pre-Diagram Checklist

Before creating the diagram, verify:

- [ ] LOADED `/mermaid` skill using the Skill tool
- [ ] Using ONLY classDef styles from the mermaid skill (no invented colors)
- [ ] Diagram will include a color legend table

---

## Related Skills

- `/make-experiment-diag` - Parent skill for lens selection
- `/mermaid` - MUST BE LOADED before creating diagram
- `/exp-lens-pipeline-integrity` - For data leakage audit
- `/exp-lens-variance-stability` - For result stability across seeds

## Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

- **Author:** [Trecek](https://github.com/Trecek)
- **Source:** [Trecek/useful-claude-skills](https://github.com/Trecek/useful-claude-skills)
- **License:** MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.