| name | mlsys-submission |
| description | Use when auditing an MLSys submission for OpenReview readiness, covering the two-column 10-page body excluding references, the separate appendix upload, double-blind rules that still permit arXiv posting, research-versus-industrial track requirements, dual-submission exceptions, style-kit compliance, and desk-reject triage before the deadline. |
MLSys Submission
Use this to run a pre-deadline audit of a Conference on Machine Learning and Systems
submission. Facts below are anchored to the 2026 cycle (verified 2026-07-08); reopen the
current Call for Research Papers and the Industrial Track call on mlsys.org before acting,
because MLSys restructures its calls between cycles — the Industrial Track itself only
appeared in 2026.
Track decision comes first
Everything downstream differs by track, so settle this before formatting anything.
| Question | Research track | Industrial track (new in 2026) |
|---|
| Novelty required? | Yes — previously unpublished research | No — but design methodology and detailed benchmarks of a built, large-scale system are expected |
| Anonymization | Full: authors, affiliations, self-references, acknowledgements | Author names hidden, but company names, product names, and URLs may remain |
| Typical author | Academic or industrial researcher with a new mechanism | Team reporting a production ML system's design and measured behavior |
| Cross-track submission | Forbidden to submit the same paper to both tracks | Same |
If the paper's strongest asset is deployment scale and operational insight rather than a new
idea, the industrial track is the honest home — reviewers there are told not to demand
novelty but will demand benchmark depth.
Format audit (2026-cycle anchors)
- Two-column layout from the official style kit (
mlsys2026style.zip in 2026, explicitly the
same format as 2025). Do not touch margins, fonts, or spacing macros.
- Main body up to 10 pages, references excluded. Every reference must list all authors —
no "et al." truncation in the bibliography; this is an explicit MLSys rule that automated
.bst choices can silently violate.
- Appendices are unlimited but are uploaded separately from the main PDF, are due at the
same time, and reviewers are not required to read them. Anything decision-critical —
the key ablation, the baseline configuration table — must live in the 10 pages.
- Abstract, title, and author fields in OpenReview must match the PDF; the submission goes
through the MLSys OpenReview group (in 2026:
MLSys.org/2026/Conference).
Anonymity model — stricter and looser than you expect
MLSys is double-blind and arXiv-tolerant: posting the paper publicly is allowed, but the
submitted PDF must still make a good-faith anonymization effort. Practical consequences:
- Strip affiliations, acknowledgements, and grant numbers; rewrite "our system X, deployed at
" phrasing in the research track.
- Self-citations stay in third person ("Prior work [12] showed...", not "In our prior work").
- Do not cite your own arXiv version in a way that equates it with the submission.
- GitHub links in a research-track submission should point to anonymized mirrors; the named
repository comes back at camera-ready and artifact evaluation.
pdfinfo paper.pdf | grep -iE 'author|producer'
pdftotext paper.pdf - | grep -inE 'acknowledg|grant|@|github.com/[a-z0-9-]+' | head
grep -rinE 'copyright|institute|univers' *.tex | grep -v style | head
Dual-submission rules
- Ineligible: any paper simultaneously under review elsewhere or already published.
- Explicitly allowed: arXiv/technical-report versions of the submission.
- Conditionally allowed: expanded versions of papers from workshops with proceedings,
subject to program-chair approval — email the workshop paper to the chairs and explain the
delta; reviewers judge the added contribution, not the whole paper.
- The industrial track applies the same no-concurrent-review rule.
Desk-reject and triage table
| Trigger | Severity | Repair window |
|---|
| Body over 10 pages or modified style kit | Desk reject | None after the deadline |
| Identity leak in a research-track PDF | Desk reject or chair flag | None |
| Same paper in both tracks | Desk reject of both | None |
| Concurrent submission discovered | Reject plus venue-relations damage | None |
| References missing full author lists | Chair-level format flag | Before deadline only |
| Headline claim only supported in the appendix | Review-stage damage | Fixable in the writing pass |
Final-week sequence for a systems paper
- Freeze the evaluation: no new runs after this point except reviewer-anticipation ablations
already scripted; late numbers breed inconsistent tables.
- Rebuild every figure and table from logged results with one command, so the PDF and the
future artifact cannot diverge.
- Move one decision-critical element back from the appendix into the body — the most common
MLSys structural error is a main paper that outsources its proof of work.
- Run the anonymity sweep above on PDF, appendix, and any linked anonymous repo.
- Verify the bibliography lists all authors per reference; regenerate with a compliant style.
- Upload paper, then appendix (separate file), then re-open both from OpenReview as a
logged-out check that the right files landed.
OpenReview field audit
The form is part of the submission; mismatches between form and PDF surface at the worst
possible times (proceedings generation, conflict detection, notification email).
- Title and abstract: character-identical to the PDF — the form copy feeds the program
and, on acceptance, the proceedings page.
- Author list: complete and ordered at submission time even though hidden from
reviewers; adding an author later requires chair intervention.
- Conflicts: every author's DBLP-visible collaborators and institutions, including
recent internships — MLSys's reviewer pool is small enough that a missed conflict is
likely to actually bite.
- Subject areas: choose from the current CFP's list (systems-for-ML and ML-for-systems
areas differ in reviewer routing); a mis-tagged paper draws the wrong culture of
reviewer, which is a real scoring effect at this venue.
- Track selector: research vs industrial, irreversible after the deadline.
- Appendix upload slot: the separate file, confirmed present — an empty slot is a silent
loss, not an error.
Cycle-volatility warnings
- The 10-page limit, separate-appendix mechanic, style-kit name, and track structure are
2026-cycle facts; the 2027 call may change any of them.
- No AI-use policy for authors was verifiable for the 2026 cycle (待核实) — check the current
call rather than assuming either permission or prohibition.
- Deadlines in this pack's workflow skill are historical anchors, not next-cycle predictions.
Output format
[MLSys readiness] Ready / Needs fixes / Not ready
[Track] research / industrial / undecided (reason)
[Blocking checks] <pages/style/anonymity/appendix-split/references/dual-submission>
[Decision-critical content in body?] yes / no -> <what to pull forward>
[Desk-reject risk] <single highest risk>
[Fix order] <ordered fixes before upload>
