Compile main.tex in project_dir with Tectonic.

pdf_path is None if compilation failed to produce a PDF. log_text always
contains the full compiler output so the caller can diagnose and fix the
source before retrying.

Render every page of pdf_path to a PNG, one file per page.

Clears any previously rendered pages first so a shorter re-render
never leaves stale pages behind from an earlier iteration.

Remove the rendered page-image folder once it's no longer needed.

Read a text file at any local path on the machine this server runs on.

For a client that has no local filesystem access of its own (e.g. a browser-based chat session reaching this server through a tunnel), this is how it reads research materials, main.tex, or anything else -- a client with its own file tools (Claude Code) can use those instead, but this must work the same way for clients that can't.

Write (creating or overwriting) a text file at any local path.

List every file under a directory, recursively, as absolute paths.

Used to discover what's actually in a research folder without already knowing the file names -- directories themselves are not included, only files.

Read an image file (a figure, or a rendered PDF page) so the calling client can actually see it, not just receive a path string.

Only for genuine image files -- for a PDF page, call render_pdf_pages
first to get PNG paths, then read those here.

Copy a file byte-for-byte -- for binary files (figures, PDFs) that read_file/write_file can't safely round-trip since they decode as UTF-8 text. Use this to bring a figure from research_folder into project_dir so the paper references it with a relative path, not an absolute path pointing outside the project -- a real gap found in practice: without this, a paper compiled fine but only by \includegraphics-ing a figure from its original external location, which isn't a self-contained submission package.

Return metadata for every template in the library (seed + user-added).

Optionally filtered by paper_type ("conference", "journal", "survey").

Return {filename: content} for the files that belong in a new paper project.

Excludes metadata.json and reference-only PDFs. Binary assets (images) are
base64-encoded; everything else is plain text.

Add a new template to the user's library (never writes into the bundled seed dir).

Always sets metadata["id"] to template_id, overriding whatever (if
anything) the caller passed for "id" -- this is what get_template_files
matches on, so a missing or mismatched "id" would silently make the
template unreachable (or crash list_templates() entirely if "id" is
missing), which happened for real once already.

Write a piece of pipeline handoff state (e.g. a screening report) for a project.

Read a previously written piece of pipeline handoff state.

Create or fully overwrite a plain, user-visible file at the project root.

Unlike write_resource (hidden internal handoff state under
.pipeline_state/), this is for deliverables the scholar is meant to read
directly, e.g. venue.md or approach.md.

Append to a plain, user-visible file at the project root, creating it if missing.

Read a plain, user-visible file previously written at the project root.

Stage 0 instructions: pre-flight screening of a research folder.

Stage 1 instructions: paper type/venue capture and template resolution.

Stage 2 instructions: draft the paper, then compile/inspect/fix until clean.

Stage 3 instructions: batched parallel paragraph rewrite + correction pass.

Stage 4 instructions: whole-paper consistency/hallucination/venue-fit check.