Use when targeting Journal of Hepatology or deciding whether a liver-disease study fits this venue. Encodes the journal's fit, the EASL clinical-and-translational evidence bar, reporting-guideline and registration requirements, Elsevier/EASL house style, official-submission re-check, and desk-reject heuristics. Venue-fit aid only, not clinical advice.
SkillScore92Maintained
Automatic
◆Research pack
Last verified 9/1/2026
What it changes
Passed 22 of 24 test cases with the skill, and 7 of 24 without it.
Without skill29%
With skill92%
Checks it passed that the model alone missed
Rates fit for Journal of Hepatology as High.
Identifies STROBE as the reporting guideline.
Rates fit for Journal of Hepatology as Medium.
and 15 more in the full report
15 fixed7 passed either way2 still failing0 broke
Pass-rate lift
+63 pp
Tokens
+15%
Agent turns
0%
Response time
-40%
Model gemini-3.6-flashMeasured 9/1/2026v122 of 24 cases passed with skill
Tokens, turns and time describe resource use, not a dollar price.
See it in action
One of 15 test cases the skill fixed. Same model, same prompt, with and without the skill.
1 of 15
Prompt
We conducted a prospective interventional pilot trial testing a dietary supplement in 60 patients with metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease. We did not register the trial in ClinicalTrials.gov or any prospective registry before patient enrollment. Evaluate suitability for Journal of Hepatology.
What was checked, without and with the skill
Checked
Without skill
With skill
Identifies missing prospective trial registration as a top risk for desk rejection.
Passed
Passed
Specifies CONSORT as the required reporting guideline for interventional trials.
Missed
Passed
case-12 · gemini-3.6-flash · 9/1/2026 · answers are capped and redacted
What's inside
The instructions your model reads when the skill loads.
SKILL.md85 linessingle file
Journal of Hepatology (journal-of-hepatology)
Journal positioning
Journal of Hepatology is the flagship journal of the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL), publishing high-impact clinical, translational, and basic science across the breadth of hepatology — viral, metabolic (MASLD/MASH), alcohol-related and autoimmune liver disease, cirrhosis and portal hypertension, acute and acute-on-chronic liver failure, hepatocellular and biliary cancers, and liver transplantation. It serves an international hepatology readership and a European clinical-guideline community, and expects work that advances mechanistic understanding or changes how liver disease is diagnosed, staged, or managed; descriptive single-center series and incremental confirmatory studies without a clear conceptual or practice advance are a weak fit. This skill is a fit / venue-selection / re-framing aid; it is not clinical or regulatory advice and does not replace the journal's current instructions for authors. Before submitting, re-check the live Journal of Hepatology author instructions.
When to trigger
The author names Journal of Hepatology for a clinical, translational, or basic liver-disease study and wants a fit/framing check.
A liver study must be re-framed around a mechanistic insight or a guideline-relevant clinical advance for an EASL/European readership.
The author is choosing between Journal of Hepatology (EASL), Hepatology (AASLD), and a general GI or general-medicine venue.
The author needs the journal's reporting-guideline, registration, and desk-reject expectations for hepatology.
Scope & topic fit
Viral hepatitis (HBV, HCV, HDV) and emerging therapies, cure strategies, and elimination-relevant clinical research.
Metabolic and steatotic liver disease (MASLD/MASH), alcohol-related liver disease, and their fibrosis/cirrhosis natural history and trials.
Cirrhosis, portal hypertension, decompensation, and acute-on-chronic liver failure — pathophysiology, biomarkers, and outcome studies.
Hepatocellular carcinoma and cholangiocarcinoma — surveillance, staging, systemic and locoregional therapy with hepatology-relevant endpoints.
Autoimmune and cholestatic liver disease (AIH, PBC, PSC) and liver transplantation: selection, immunosuppression, and graft/patient outcomes.
Translational and basic hepatobiliary science (immunology, fibrogenesis, regeneration, omics) with clear disease relevance.
Method & evidence bar
Clinical studies must be adequately powered with prespecified, clinically meaningful endpoints; surrogate or biomarker endpoints (e.g., fibrosis stage, viral suppression) need validation and justification.
The applicable reporting guideline must be followed and its checklist supplied: CONSORT for trials, STROBE for observational studies, PRISMA for systematic reviews, STARD for diagnostic/biomarker accuracy.
Interventional trials require prospective registration; the registration number and protocol/statistical-analysis plan are expected.
Translational and basic work needs rigorous controls, adequate replication, and validation in human samples or disease-relevant models, not a single cell line or model.
Diagnostic and prognostic biomarker claims (non-invasive fibrosis tests, HCC markers) require an independent validation cohort and comparison against an accepted reference standard.
Observational and registry analyses must address confounding, selection, and competing risks (e.g., liver-related death vs. transplant); causal language must match the design.
Structure & house style
EASL/Elsevier format with a structured abstract and a concise lay/impact summary where required; re-check current article types (Research Article, Short Communication, etc.) and limits on the live guide.
The introduction frames a focused hepatology question and its mechanistic or clinical importance; the discussion states the management or guideline implication and aligns terminology with current EASL nomenclature (e.g., MASLD/MASH).
Figures and tables follow journal statistical-reporting standards; a CONSORT/STROBE/PRISMA flow diagram is expected where applicable.
Supplements carry the protocol, full statistical methods, extended characterization, and additional cohorts/analyses.