NIH Common Forms (SciENcv) Playbook (2026)

A docs-first, GitHub Pages–ready site to help PIs, Co-Is, staff, and research administrators complete NIH’s Common Forms requirements in SciENcv:

• Biographical Sketch Common Form + NIH Biographical Sketch Supplement
• Current and Pending (Other) Support (CPOS) Common Form

Read the published playbook or the v1.10 release notes.

Compliance note: NIH requires digitally certified PDFs generated from SciENcv. Keep each Common Form unmodified unless the Application Guide or NOFO expressly requires a special compiled/flattened attachment; foreign contracts and annual MFTRP statements are separate attachments.

September 2026 operational alert: Institutional notices advise re-certifying affected older SciENcv PDFs and replacing submission attachments. See the signing-certificate alert and steps for the dates, sources, and validation checks.

Publish on GitHub Pages (recommended)

The existing repository is configured for https://fritschelab.github.io/nih-sciencv-playbook/ in docs/_config.yml.

1. Complete the publication checks below and commit the release changes.
2. In the repository's Settings → Pages, select Deploy from a branch, branch main, folder /docs, and save if needed.
3. Push the reviewed commits to main. Check the Pages build and deployment run in Actions, then verify the published home page, release notes, diagrams, and XML validator.

GitHub documents this branch-based publishing setup. For a fork or custom domain, update url, baseurl, the footer link, and gh_edit_repository in docs/_config.yml before publishing.

The site uses the Just the Docs Jekyll theme (remote theme), which is easy to host on GitHub Pages and includes built-in search.

Mermaid diagrams use the pinned release in docs/_config.yml. The local theme-component override supplies readable scrolling and SVG accessibility metadata after rendering.

Local preview (optional)

Use Ruby 3.3 and Bundler. On macOS with Homebrew, install Ruby and put it on the current shell's path:

brew install ruby@3.3
export PATH="$(brew --prefix ruby@3.3)/bin:$PATH"

From the repository root, install the locked dependencies into the ignored local vendor directory, then start the preview:

cd docs
bundle config set --local path ../.vendor/bundle
bundle install
bundle exec jekyll serve

For a build without a preview server, use bundle exec jekyll build --destination /tmp/nih-sciencv-playbook-site from docs/.

Publication checks

Run from the repository root after setting up the local dependencies:

git diff --check
python3 -m unittest discover -s tests -p 'test_validate_cpos_xml.py'
cmp tools/index.html docs/tools/index.html
(cd docs && bundle exec jekyll build --destination /tmp/nih-sciencv-playbook-site)

After diagram or rendering changes, also run the Mermaid visual QA below. Keep Unreleased as a placeholder and move completed changes into a dated release entry in docs/changelog.md. Review the source gaps and conflicts in docs/references.md before changing policy guidance.

Mermaid visual QA

The browser capture tool uses the site's pinned Mermaid version and the built Jekyll pages. It captures every diagram at desktop and mobile widths and records rendering errors, displayed label sizes, and SVG accessibility metadata. Install its dependencies with npm ci --prefix tools/mermaid-qa; it requires Node.js 22.12 or newer and an installed Chrome or Chromium browser.

Inspect the captured images to assess overlap, connector routing, contrast, and readability. A successful render alone does not establish a visual pass.

Maintainers

• Update content in docs/ (Markdown).
• Add new links to docs/references.md.
• Track important changes in docs/changelog.md.
• If you update tools/index.html, run tools/sync_docs_tools.sh to publish it to docs/tools/index.html for GitHub Pages.

Source material

This site is reorganized and expanded from a long-form internal guide:

• See Appendix → Long-form guide (current reference).