focs-review-process
Use when reasoning about how a FOCS (IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science) submission is evaluated — the TCMF-sponsored program committee, subreferee delegation, double-blind norms the venue adopted years before STOC, the summer decision arc, and what each outcome means for a theory paper.
Profile →npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill focs-review-process --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# FOCS Review Process FOCS reviewing is run by a program committee assembled per edition under IEEE Computer Society TCMF sponsorship — for FOCS 2026, chaired by Sanjeev Khanna (CFP checked 2026-07-08). There is no standing editorial board and no multi-year continuity of policy: each cycle's CFP is the constitution, and each PC interprets it once. This skill models the pipeline so authors can predict it rather than be surprised by it. ## Pipeline anatomy (April → summer, 2026 cycle) | Stage | Who | What actually happens | |---|---|---| | Assignment | PC chair + conflict data | Papers matched to 2–4 PC members using HotCRP topics and your conflict declarations — errors here trace back to sloppy metadata | | Expert consultation | PC members → subreferees | A PC member covering a distant subarea recruits the specialist your paper needs; assume at least one reader knows the area's folklore | | Reading under the window rule | Everyone | Breadth readers judge from abstract + references + ten pages; depth readers verify targeted proofs (`focs-supplementary`) | | Committee discussion | Full PC (online and/or meeting) | Papers argued comparatively across all of TCS; the champion model domin
- Pipeline anatomy (April → summer, 2026 cycle)
- What the committee optimizes
- Double-blind, the FOCS way
- How authors can (and cannot) shape the process
- Interpreting outcomes
- Reading the reviews you eventually receive
- Calibration notes
What does the focs-review-process skill do?
Use when reasoning about how a FOCS (IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science) submission is evaluated — the TCMF-sponsored program committee, subreferee delegation, double-blind norms the venue adopted years before STOC, the summer decision arc, and what each outcome means for a theory paper.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill focs-review-process --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills, a repository with 909 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.