legalcode-docx-render

name: legalcode-docx-render description: > Use to render a finalised Markdown file to a self-contained Word document suitable for filing with Alþingi committees, ESA, regulated clients, or external counsel. Triggers on "render this markdown to docx", "convert to Word", or "produce a .docx with Icelandic legal typography". Applies Arial 10pt body, sized headings, 1-inch margins; injects thin (0.5pt grey) horizontal borders between table rows; and runs a mandatory standalone- document audit so opening the file in Word, LibreOffice, or Pages produces zero update prompts (no TOC field codes, no attached templates, no file- system external relationships). Designed as the rendering back end for the legalcode-anti-gold-plating-is skill but works as a general-purpose Icelandic-legal DOCX renderer. Use after the substantive markdown is frozen — this skill does not edit prose; it only renders. allowed-tools: Read, Write, Bash

Legalcode DOCX Renderer (Icelandic legal typography)

When to use

After a substantive markdown deliverable is frozen — typically the end of the legalcode-anti-gold-plating-is skill's Stage 9e or Stage 10e — render to a self-contained .docx that is fit for delivery to lawyers, Alþingi committees, ESA, or regulated parties.

Do not use this skill for drafts under active substantive editing. The pipeline freezes content before rendering; if content is still changing, render later.

Typography

Page: US Letter or A4 with 1-inch (1440 DXA) margins. Line spacing: single. Paragraph spacing: 0pt before, 6pt after. Heading paragraph spacing: 12pt before, 4pt after.

Standalone-document requirement

The .docx must produce zero prompts when opened in Word, LibreOffice, or Pages. Three failure modes are explicitly forbidden:

• No Word { TOC \o ... } field codes. The skill renders any Efnisyfirlit section as ordinary headings and bullets in the markdown source; pandoc must be invoked without --toc.
• No <w:attachedTemplate> references in word/settings.xml. The reference document used for typography must not propagate as an attached template.
• No file-system TargetMode="External" relationships in word/_rels/document.xml.rels. Web URLs (http://, https://) to althingi.is, EUR-Lex, domstolar.is etc. are permitted because they do not trigger an open-time prompt; file://, drive letters, and relative paths are not.

Table borders (mandatory)

Pandoc renders markdown tables with no tblBorders element by default — every <w:tbl> inherits the bare „Table" style and the result on screen is a grid of text floating in white space. For a long legal document with many tables this fuses the rows visually and forces the reader to count cells.

Every <w:tbl> in the delivered .docx must carry a tblBorders element with at minimum a thin (0.5pt, soft grey #999999) horizontal line between rows (w:insideH) and on the top and bottom edges of the table (w:top / w:bottom). Left, right, and inside-vertical borders must remain blank — only horizontal rules between rows are needed.

The post-render helper scripts/add-table-borders.py injects these into every table that lacks them. It is idempotent.

Render protocol

Step 1 — Generate the reference docx (one-time setup)

python3 scripts/build-reference-docx.py /tmp/reference-is.docx

This produces a reference document with the typography table above baked in. Reusable across renders.

Step 2 — Render with pandoc

pandoc -f gfm+smart -t docx \
  --metadata title="{Document title}" \
  --metadata lang=is \
  --reference-doc=/tmp/reference-is.docx \
  -o "{output}.docx" \
  "{input}.md"

Do NOT pass --toc. Any table of contents must be hand-written in the markdown source.

Step 3 — Inject table borders (mandatory)

python3 scripts/add-table-borders.py "{output}.docx"

Idempotent — re-running on a document that already has borders is a no-op.

Step 4 — Audit (mandatory)

F="{output}.docx"
echo "Container valid:    $(unzip -l "$F" | grep -q word/document.xml && echo ✓ || echo ✗)"
echo "Tables w/ borders:  $(unzip -p "$F" word/document.xml | grep -oc 'tblBorders') of $(unzip -p "$F" word/document.xml | grep -oc '<w:tbl>')"
echo "instrText:          $(unzip -p "$F" word/document.xml | grep -c '<w:instrText')"
echo "fldChar:            $(unzip -p "$F" word/document.xml | grep -c '<w:fldChar')"
echo "fldSimple:          $(unzip -p "$F" word/document.xml | grep -c '<w:fldSimple')"
echo "attachedTpl:        $(unzip -p "$F" word/settings.xml 2>/dev/null | grep -c 'attachedTemplate')"
echo "Local-fs ext rels:  $(unzip -p "$F" word/_rels/document.xml.rels 2>/dev/null | grep -E 'TargetMode="External"[^>]*Target="(file:|[A-Z]:|\\.)' | wc -l)"

Required output:

• Container valid: ✓
• Tables with borders == count of <w:tbl> (1:1)
• instrText, fldChar, fldSimple: all 0
• attachedTpl: 0
• Local-fs ext rels: 0

Any deviation is a hard fail. Repair the docx before delivery — either by re-rendering without the offending feature or by post-processing the OOXML directly (unzip → edit word/settings.xml or word/_rels/document.xml.rels → zip -X re-pack).

Icelandic character preservation

After rendering, confirm Icelandic characters survive:

pandoc -f docx -t plain "{output}.docx" | head -40 | grep -oE "[þðæöÞÐÆÖ]" | sort -u

Expected: at least one of þ, ð, æ, ö visible. If any are mangled, the renderer is misconfigured — re-run with explicit --metadata lang=is.

What this skill does NOT do

• Does not edit the markdown source. If the prose needs work, fix it upstream.
• Does not generate a Table of Contents — the markdown must contain a static Efnisyfirlit section.
• Does not bundle the Anthropic docx skill. If that skill is available in your runtime, use it directly with the typography brief in the parent skill; this renderer is the fallback when it is not.

Provenance

• Created: 2026-05-27
• License: Proprietary (Legalcode)
• Dependencies: pandoc ≥ 3.0, python3 ≥ 3.10, python-docx (for reference-docx generation only)