| name | micro-submission |
| description | Use when auditing a MICRO submission before HotCRP upload — the 11-page-plus-references limit with no appendix allowed, EDT (not AoE) deadline arithmetic, the abstract-registration gate a week before the paper, minimum 9pt fonts, mandatory page numbers, all-author reference entries, and MICRO's visual-plus-automated format inspection. |
MICRO Submission
Run this audit against the exact PDF headed to HotCRP. Anchors below are the MICRO
2026 (59th) cycle — CFP and submission guidelines at microarch.org/micro59/submit/,
checked 2026-07-08. Every number is a snapshot; reopen the current cycle's pages.
Three traps that are specifically MICRO's
- Deadlines run on US Eastern time. MICRO 2026 closed abstracts on March 31 and
papers on April 7, each at 11:59 PM EDT. Authors trained on AoE venues lose up
to a working day by assuming AoE. Convert to every co-author's timezone in writing
during deadline week.
- The abstract deadline is a registration gate, one week early. No abstract in
HotCRP by the first date means no paper submission at all. Register placeholders
for every plausible paper; withdrawing is free, adding late is impossible.
- No appendix. At all. The 2026 guidelines allow at most 11 pages of content
plus unlimited references — and explicitly permit no appendix. Anything you
planned to park after the references must be cut, absorbed into the 11 pages, or
moved to an anonymized artifact repository (see
micro-supplementary).
Format gate table (2026 guidelines)
| Rule | 2026 setting | Enforcement |
|---|
| Content length | ≤ 11 pages, everything except references | Inspected; overlength rejected |
| References | Unlimited pages | Must name all authors — no "et al." per entry |
| Appendix | Forbidden | No parking space exists |
| Fonts | Minimum 9pt everywhere, figures included | Checked visually, not just by tool |
| Page numbers | Required on the submission | Unusual — most venues strip them |
| Template | MICRO 2026 LaTeX template strongly encouraged | Geometry edits and \vspace squeezing barred |
| Inspection | Visual and automated | Passing the HotCRP format checker is not clearance |
The last row deserves emphasis: the guidelines state submissions can be rejected for
format violations even if the HotCRP check passed. Treat the checker as a smoke
test, then eyeball a printed copy — tiny axis labels on plots are the classic kill.
Anonymity, MICRO flavor
- Double-blind review, maintained through the rebuttal/revision window.
- Artifact links (e.g., a GitHub repository) must be fully anonymized, or
removed if they cannot be — the 2026 guidelines say both halves explicitly.
- No acknowledgments section in the submission: no people, no funding agencies.
- Self-citations in third person; scrub PDF metadata, embedded paths, and simulator
config files inside any linked artifact that carry usernames or lab hostnames.
Mechanical pre-flight
pdfinfo paper.pdf | grep Pages
pdffonts paper.pdf | awk 'NR>2 {print $1}' | sort -u
pdftotext -f 2 -l 2 paper.pdf - | tail -3
grep -n "et al" references.bib && echo "FIX: expand all author lists"
pdftotext paper.pdf - | grep -inE "(our (prior|previous) work|anonymous|acknowledg)"
exiftool paper.pdf | grep -iE "author|creator"
HotCRP sequencing for deadline week
- T-8 days (abstract deadline): register title, abstract, authors, topics,
conflicts. Topic checkboxes drive reviewer assignment — pick for the mechanism,
not the application domain.
- T-3: freeze the evaluation; regenerate all figures from the run archive so
the artifact and the PDF cannot disagree later at AE time.
- T-1: full format pass (table above) on the final PDF; print pages with the
densest figures and check 9pt compliance by eye.
- T-0, hours early in EDT terms: upload, confirm HotCRP shows the final PDF
(re-download it and diff checksums), and have a second author log in
independently to verify the submission state.
What the abstract registration should actually contain
The T-8 abstract is not a formality — reviewers bid on it and topic-matching runs
from it. Three failure modes to avoid at the registration gate:
- Placeholder prose ("we study caches") attracts mismatched bidders whose
eventual reviews read the paper against the wrong literature.
- Overclaiming the final numbers before the sweep finishes — the PDF must
deliver the abstract's promise, and the HotCRP abstract should be updated to
match the final PDF before the paper deadline.
- Wrong topic checkboxes. Pick the mechanism area (memory hierarchy, branch
prediction, accelerators, security) over the application domain (ML, graphs) —
the mechanism community is who you want reviewing.
Conflicts deserve the same care at registration: advisors, recent co-authors, and
institutional conflicts declared per the form's definitions. A conflict discovered
after assignment is an integrity incident, not a paperwork fix.
Also decide: main track or Industry Track
MICRO 2026 opened an inaugural Industry Track with its own CFP and a review
process tailored to production constraints (micro59/submit/industrial.php). If the
paper's value is deployment evidence rather than a new general mechanism, route it
there deliberately — do not let a production paper be judged by main-track novelty
rules. Track-specific deadlines and rules: 待核实 against the live page.
If something goes wrong at the wire
- HotCRP shows "draft" at T-minus-minutes: an unfinished required field is
the usual cause — the form, not the PDF. Fill, save, re-check the state label.
- The format checker rejects a compliant PDF: rebuild with the untouched
template class file; embedded Type-3 fonts from a figure pipeline are the
common trigger. Do not "fix" it by altering template geometry.
- A co-author spots an identity leak post-deadline: do not silently update
anything; email the program chairs immediately — self-reporting a leak is
survivable, discovery is not.
- Missed the abstract gate entirely: there is no paper this cycle. Move
straight to the lattice in
micro-workflow and book the next venue's window.
Output format
[Upload verdict] go / no-go (blocking items listed)
[Clock] deadline in EDT: <local equivalents per author>
[Abstract gate] registered by T-7: yes / no
[Pages] content: N/11 · references: N (unlimited) · appendix present: must be "no"
[Format] 9pt floor / page numbers / template intact / no vspace hacks: pass-fail each
[References] entries with "et al.": N (must be 0)
[Anonymity] artifact links anonymized-or-removed / metadata clean / no acks: pass-fail
[Track] main / industry — one-line justification
