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name: fse-workflow description: Use when planning an ESEC/FSE project timeline from venue fit through paper registration, submission, the journal-style Major Revision round, artifact evaluation, PACMSE camera-ready, and presentation, with backward-planning offsets for an empirical-SE paper and honest handling of the single-annual-deadline cycle and cycle-hopping.

FSE Workflow

Use this as the project-management skill for an FSE submission. Replace every date with the current official timetable and work backwards from the HotCRP registration cutoff — which precedes the paper deadline. FSE publishes in PACMSE, so plan for a possible Major Revision round inside the review year, not just an accept/reject.

FSE is a conference whose papers are journal articles: it has no standing editor-in-chief and no article-processing charge. Rotating leadership is the per-edition General and Program/Review Co-Chairs (FSE 2026 General Chairs: Shin Hwei Tan and Foutse Khomh, verified 2026-07-09), and the cost model is registration, not APCs — PACMSE is open access. Chairs rotate yearly; re-check the organizing-committee page rather than carrying a name forward.

Milestones

• Venue fit: confirm FSE over ICSE/ASE/ISSTA and confirm the paper is ready this cycle (fse-topic-selection).
• Evidence lock: freeze research questions, subject systems, baselines, statistics, threats, and the artifact contents.
• Registration: submit real title, abstract, authors, topics, and conflicts by the earlier registration deadline (FSE 2026: 4 Sep 2025).
• Submission: upload the anonymized PDF and Data Availability statement (FSE 2026: 11 Sep 2025; FSE 2027: 2 Oct 2026).
• Reviews: triage each comment by criterion (significance, soundness, evidence, threats, clarity, open-science).
• Major Revision (if issued): execute a tracked-change revision plus an anonymous, point-by- point response, re-read by the original reviewers.
• Decision: archive reviews, response, and every submitted version.
• Acceptance: prepare the PACMSE camera-ready, pursue ACM artifact badges on the artifact track's own deadline, register, and present.

Backward plan from the submission deadline

Weeks out (heuristic)	Empirical-SE milestone
10+	Research questions fixed; subject systems and baselines chosen
8	Data collection / experiments complete; provenance and seeds logged
6	Analysis done; effect sizes and tests computed; threats drafted alongside results
4	Full draft in the ACM template; artifact assembled and anonymized
3	Internal mock review by an SE-empiricist reader
2	Threats hardened, related-work delta sharpened, page budget met
1	Anonymity sweep on PDF and artifact; Data Availability statement final
0	Registration by its earlier cutoff, then paper + artifact link on HotCRP

These offsets are planning heuristics only — anchor every one to the current Important Dates page, never to a previous cycle's calendar.

Cycle-hopping: the honest calendar reality

FSE runs (currently) a single annual research deadline. As of 2026-07-09, FSE 2026 is in progress in Montreal, so the live next target is FSE 2027 (Shenzhen; deadline 2 Oct 2026). Two planning consequences:

• A Major Revision that cannot be finished in the window may, depending on the year's rules, be resubmittable to the next FSE cycle rather than lost — but this is exactly the kind of policy that changes per edition, so verify it before relying on it.
• Missing the annual deadline costs roughly a year at FSE; a sibling flagship (ICSE/ASE/ISSTA) or an SE journal may have a nearer date — factor that into routing rather than idling.

Failure modes by stage

• Evidence still moving at week 4 forces last-minute analysis nobody has audited — the classic soundness reject in the making.
• Leaving the anonymized artifact to the final week is how a data-availability link or a lab-named tool leaks identity under heavy anonymity.
• Skipping the mock review forfeits the one chance to hear "your baseline is unfair" from a friend instead of a reviewer.
• Treating a Major Revision as a formality and under-budgeting the revision window turns a winnable R&R into a reject.

Coordination notes

• Assign one owner for the Data Availability / artifact and another for the anonymity sweep; shared ownership is how both slip.
• Archive the exact submitted PDF, artifact, and (later) response letter — the revision round must quote them precisely and stay anonymous.

Output format

[Current stage] idea / evidence / writing / registration / submitted / major revision / accepted
[Next official deadline] <date and source, or unknown>
[Critical path] <three tasks that determine readiness>
[Risk register] <page budget / anonymity / evidence / threats / artifact / presentation>
[Owner map] <task -> person or role>