| name | icse-workflow |
| description | Use when planning an ICSE research-track campaign end to end, covering the single-cycle calendar from the June abstract deadline through September response, October decisions, the November revision sprint, artifact evaluation, camera-ready, and the April conference, plus rerouting timelines after rejection. |
ICSE Workflow
An ICSE campaign is a ten-month pipeline with one entrance. The 2027 cycle
(checked 2026-07-08 against the official dates pages) runs a single
submission cycle — a change from the two-cycle 2025/2026 model — so a missed
June deadline costs a full year, and the calendar below is the whole game.
The 2027-cycle master calendar
| Date (all AoE where applicable) | Milestone | Your workstream |
|---|
| Jun 23, 2026 | Abstract (mandatory) | Real title + abstract frozen |
| Jun 30, 2026 | Full paper deadline | 10+2 IEEE PDF, artifact link live |
| Jul–Aug 2026 | Reviews written | Prepare response infrastructure; rest |
| Sep 2026 | Author response window | Criterion-mapped replies (icse-author-response) |
| Oct 20, 2026 | Decisions: Accept / Major Revision / Reject | Branch: celebrate / sprint / reroute |
| Nov 17, 2026 | Major Revision due | Four-week revision sprint |
| Dec 18, 2026 | Final MR decisions | Terminal for the cycle |
| Early 2027 (待核实) | Artifact evaluation window | Badge submission (icse-artifact-evaluation) |
| 待核实 | Camera-ready due | +1 page allowance, IEEE production |
| Apr 25 – May 1, 2027 | ICSE in Dublin (core Apr 28–30) | Talk, artifact, networking plan |
Artifact-evaluation and camera-ready dates for 2027 were not posted at check
time; the 2026 edition ran artifact registration/submission in early January,
which is the planning anchor until real dates appear.
Working backward from June 30
A credible empirical-SE paper cannot be compressed into deadline month, because
its long poles — subject recruitment, benchmark construction, multi-week tool
runs, qualitative coding with a second rater — do not parallelize late. Plan
backward:
Jun 30 freeze: PDF + anonymized replication package
Jun 16 full internal mock review against the four criteria
Jun 02 results complete; threats-to-validity written from real limitations
May 05 evaluation running at scale; paper skeleton has real numbers
Apr 07 study design locked (RQs, baselines, metrics, subjects); pilot done
Mar 2026 and earlier: idea vetted with icse-topic-selection; related work swept
The two dates authors most often plan around wrongly: the abstract deadline
is mandatory (June 23 — a week before the paper, not a formality), and the
response window is September, which lands in teaching-start season for most
groups — reserve the days now.
Role assignments that prevent deadline-week chaos
- Evidence owner — benchmarks, baselines, statistics; owns Jun 2 freeze.
- Artifact owner — replication package, anonymization, availability
statement; owns the link that goes in the paper.
- Prose owner — the 10-page budget, the threats section, the criterion
self-audit.
- Process owner — HotCRP fields, conflicts, abstract registration,
calendar of every date above in the group calendar with AoE conversions.
One person can hold two hats; no hat may be unheld.
Branch plans after October 20
- Accept: artifact-evaluation submission (badges are opt-in and
post-acceptance), camera-ready with the extra page, Dublin logistics.
- Major Revision: the November sprint is pre-planned before October —
which experiments could be extended, which machines are free in November.
Groups that first think about feasibility on notification day lose a week
of the four.
- Reject: reroute within weeks, not months. FSE and ASE deadlines
typically land in spring/summer, ISSTA in autumn/winter; TSE/TOSEM/EMSE take
extended versions year-round, and a journal acceptance can return to the
ICSE stage via journal-first (2027 window: papers accepted Oct 11, 2025 –
Oct 10, 2026 at TSE/TOSEM/EMSE). Check each venue's live dates — sibling
calendars move annually.
Cadence between milestones
The calendar above names endpoints; groups that hit them run a steady
between-milestone cadence: a weekly claims-vs-evidence review from April
(which headline claim is still unevidenced, who unblocks it), a biweekly
package build so the artifact never diverges more than two weeks from the
paper, and a standing "deadline minus 14" rehearsal where the current draft
is mock-reviewed against the four criteria by someone outside the author
list. The mock review is the cheapest Major-Revision insurance available:
it finds the missing-baseline and boilerplate-threats objections while
there is still a month to fix them rather than four weeks in November.
Cycle-volatility warnings
- The single-cycle structure itself is the newest variable: 2025/2026 ran two
cycles, 2027 runs one. Verify the cycle count first each year, because it
changes every downstream date and the rerouting math.
- Response format, artifact deadlines, camera-ready dates, and registration
rules were all unposted for 2027 at check time — 待核实 before promising
them to coauthors.
- Do not let old two-cycle advice ("resubmit to cycle 2") leak into planning;
that lane does not exist in 2027.
Output format
[Cycle position] months to next ICSE deadline; feasible? yes/no
[Backward plan] dated milestones from today to freeze
[Owners] evidence / artifact / prose / process
[Branch readiness] MR sprint pre-plan? reroute venue + date named?
[Calendar risks] deadlines colliding with teaching/travel; AoE conversions done
