A skill your agent uses when judging whether a project belongs at NSDI, picking among its research, operational-systems, and frontiers tracks, or re-routing to SIGCOMM, OSDI, SOSP, FAST, or…

MITAuto-check passed

Install Nsdi Topic Selection

skills CLI
$ npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill nsdi-topic-selection -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills nsdi-topic-selection --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/NSDI-Skills/skills/nsdi-topic-selection .claude/skills/nsdi-topic-selection && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
nsdi-topic-selection
GitHub stars
1.2k
Token cost
~1.7k tokens
SKILL.md length
779 words
Files
1
Skills in repo
2,387
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

A skill your agent uses when judging whether a project belongs at NSDI, picking among its research, operational-systems, and frontiers tracks, or re-routing to SIGCOMM, OSDI, SOSP, FAST, or…

  • Works in 3 steps: Work with **no contribution to the… → Hardware architecture and physical-layer… → Sensing and localization work.
  • Judging whether a project belongs at NSDI
  • SKILL.md covers The scope sentence that…, Three tracks, three evidence…, Routing among the siblings and Calendar as a routing input, plus 3 more sections
  • Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md

What it does

Nsdi Topic Selection is an agent skill from brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills. Use when judging whether a project belongs at NSDI, picking among its research, operational-systems, and frontiers tracks, or re-routing to SIGCOMM, OSDI, SOSP, FAST, or SIGMETRICS — testing the networking-stack contribution, the CFP's out-of-scope lines, and which of the two yearly deadlines to aim at.

Its SKILL.md is about 1.7k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. It is a single SKILL.md file with no bundled scripts.

The repository describes itself as: Journal-specific Claude Code/Codex skill packs covering mainstream journals — AER, QJE, Nature, Cell, 管理世界, 经济研究 & 200+ more — your fast track to getting published. | 覆盖主流期刊的… The licence is MIT.

When your agent uses it

  • Judging whether a project belongs at NSDI
  • Picking among its research
  • Operational-systems
  • Frontiers tracks

Example prompts

  • “/nsdi-topic-selection”

Workflow steps

3 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

  1. Work with **no contribution to the design of networked systems or the networking
  2. Hardware architecture and physical-layer contributions (beamforming,
  3. Sensing and localization work.

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 932eb23. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md.

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    No URLs in SKILL.md.

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Nsdi Topic Selection loads about 1.7k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 81 tokens; SKILL.md has 779 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~81
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~1.7k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills at commit 932eb23, republished under its MIT licence (© brycewang-stanford). 779 words, ~1,724 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/nsdi-topic-selection/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder).
name
nsdi-topic-selection
description
Use when judging whether a project belongs at NSDI, picking among its research, operational-systems, and frontiers tracks, or re-routing to SIGCOMM, OSDI, SOSP, FAST, or SIGMETRICS — testing the networking-stack contribution, the CFP's out-of-scope lines, and which of the two yearly deadlines to aim at.

NSDI Topic Selection

Venue choice at NSDI is a scope question before it is a quality question. The notes below reflect the NSDI '27 Call for Papers as rendered on 2026-07-08; the scope paragraph, track list, and exclusions are rewritten each edition, so reread usenix.org/conference/nsdi27/call-for-papers before committing a team to a deadline.

The scope sentence that decides most cases

The CFP's negative space is unusually explicit. Three families are declared out of scope regardless of quality:

  1. Work with no contribution to the design of networked systems or the networking stack — a distributed application that merely uses the network is not enough.
  2. Hardware architecture and physical-layer contributions (beamforming, modulation, and similar).
  3. Sensing and localization work.

The positive test is the venue's full name: design principles, implementation, and practical evaluation of networked and distributed systems. Ask: which layer of a networked system does this change, and what realistic traffic has been pushed through the change? If neither clause has an answer, no amount of polish fixes the fit.

Three tracks, three evidence contracts

NSDI '27 reviews three tracks; the choice is made at submission and sets the bar the paper is judged against.

TrackContract with reviewersWrong-track failure mode
ResearchNew design + implementation + practical evaluationPrototype thin on evaluation reads as unfinished
Operational systemsReal-world use of a deployed system; anonymization relaxed (system/company names may stay)Research prototype dressed as "operational" has no experience to report
FrontiersBold, high-novelty idea; complete evaluation not requiredIncremental idea with partial results reads as an excuse, not a frontier

The frontiers track is the newest lever: it exists precisely for work that fails the research track's evaluation bar because the idea is early, not because the experiments were skipped. Do not use it to launder an under-evaluated conventional design.

Routing among the siblings

text
Where does the center of gravity sit?  (verify each venue's live CFP)
network/distributed system, built + measured      -> NSDI (research)
deployed at scale, lessons are the contribution   -> NSDI (operational systems)
early, reshapes how a problem is framed           -> NSDI (frontiers)
protocol/measurement result, networking community
  but no built-system requirement                 -> SIGCOMM
host OS, runtime, or kernel is the object         -> OSDI / SOSP
storage stack end to end                          -> FAST
performance modeling / queueing analysis          -> SIGMETRICS
mobile/wireless system with PHY entanglement      -> MobiCom (PHY itself: out of NSDI scope)

The NSDI/OSDI boundary is the one most often argued. Both are USENIX systems venues, but they cut the stack differently: when the network or the distributed coordination is the object of design, the work is NSDI's; when the host — kernel, scheduler, memory, storage — is the object and the network is plumbing, it is OSDI/SOSP material. A useful probe: delete the multi-node aspect from the evaluation. If the contribution survives on one machine, NSDI reviewers will notice too.

The NSDI/SIGCOMM boundary is cultural as much as topical: overlapping communities, but NSDI expects a built system whose design is validated end to end, while a measurement-only or protocol-analysis paper without an implementation story travels better to SIGCOMM. ML topics cut both ways at NSDI: systems for ML and ML for systems are named in scope, but a paper whose delta is model accuracy has left the venue.

Show full SKILL.md (332 more words)Show less

Calendar as a routing input

NSDI's two deadlines per edition change the routing calculus in ways single-deadline siblings cannot match. As of 2026-07-08:

  • NSDI '27 spring deadline (papers April 23, 2026) has passed; notification lands July 23, 2026.
  • NSDI '27 fall deadline is open: abstracts September 10, papers September 17, 2026 (11:59 pm US EDT).

Consequences worth planning around: a near-ready project can target September rather than waiting most of a year; a spring submission that draws a one-shot revision gets a structured second life at a later deadline (nsdi-review-process); but a spring rejection without revision locks the paper out of the fall deadline — so submitting a half-built system "to get feedback" costs a real option. Eight submissions per author is the cap across both deadlines.

Borderline cases, adjudicated

Recurring gray zones and how the scope sentence resolves them:

  • ML training/serving system: in scope when the contribution is communication, placement, or coordination across machines ("systems for ML"); out when the delta is model quality with a distributed backdrop.
  • Measurement study: strong at NSDI when it ends in a design consequence — a mechanism, defense, or operator-actionable finding; measurement without consequence travels better to IMC.
  • Single-host networking stack (kernel bypass, NIC offload): genuinely contested territory with OSDI; NSDI-favored when end-to-end, multi-node behavior is the object of evaluation.
  • Wireless system: in scope above the physical layer; the moment the contribution is beamforming or modulation, the CFP's exclusion applies.

Fit probes before committing a deadline

  • Name the networking-stack or distributed-design element that is new. One sentence, no adjectives.
  • Name the realistic traffic: which trace, testbed, or deployment exercises the design? "We will find a workload later" means the fall deadline, not this one.
  • Name the operational constraint the design respects (failure domains, incremental deployability, tail behavior) — NSDI's reviewer culture reads for these.
  • Confirm the honest track. Deployment stories need a deployment; frontiers ideas need genuine novelty, not missing baselines.
  • Check the exclusion list once more — sensing/localization and PHY work get desk attention, not sympathy.

Output format

text
[NSDI fit] strong / arguable / out of scope (cite which scope clause)
[Stack element changed] <one sentence>
[Realistic traffic] <trace / testbed / deployment named, or "missing">
[Track] research / operational / frontiers (why this contract)
[Deadline math] fall '26-09-17 vs next spring; option cost if rejected
[Re-route] SIGCOMM / OSDI / SOSP / FAST / SIGMETRICS / MobiCom + reason

© brycewang-stanford, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

Just SKILL.md in NSDI-Skills/skills/nsdi-topic-selection of brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 932eb23

Compare with similar skills

Nsdi Topic Selection next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Nsdi Topic Selection compared with similar skills
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Nsdi Topic Selection this skillbrycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills1.2k—~1.7kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
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JudgeNeoLabHQ/context-engineering-kit1.7k—~2kAutomated safety check: PassGPL-3.0
Do And JudgeNeoLabHQ/context-engineering-kit1.7k—~14kAutomated safety check: PassGPL-3.0
TopicsZimoLiao/scholaraio577—~294Automated safety check: PassMIT
Topic Modelingbrycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-Skills4.5k—~3.7kAutomated safety check: PassCustom licence

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Questions about Nsdi Topic Selection

What does Nsdi Topic Selection do?

A skill your agent uses when judging whether a project belongs at NSDI, picking among its research, operational-systems, and frontiers tracks, or re-routing to SIGCOMM, OSDI, SOSP, FAST, or…. Nsdi Topic Selection is an agent skill from brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills. Use when judging whether a project belongs at NSDI, picking among its research, operational-systems, and frontiers tracks, or re-routing to SIGCOMM, OSDI, SOSP, FAST, or SIGMETRICS — testing the networking-stack contribution, the CFP's out-of-scope lines, and which of the two yearly deadlines to aim at.

When should I use Nsdi Topic Selection?

Nsdi Topic Selection fits situations like: judging whether a project belongs at NSDI; picking among its research; operational-systems; frontiers tracks.

How do I install Nsdi Topic Selection in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill nsdi-topic-selection -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (NSDI-Skills/skills/nsdi-topic-selection in brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills) into .claude/skills/nsdi-topic-selection in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Nsdi Topic Selection in Codex?

Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill nsdi-topic-selection -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (NSDI-Skills/skills/nsdi-topic-selection in brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills) into .agents/skills/nsdi-topic-selection in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Nsdi Topic Selection in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill nsdi-topic-selection -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/nsdi-topic-selection, .gemini/skills/nsdi-topic-selection, .github/skills/nsdi-topic-selection and .opencode/skills/nsdi-topic-selection in your project.

What does Nsdi Topic Selection need to run?

SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: Nsdi Topic Selection is instructions for the agent only.

Does Nsdi Topic Selection access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Any network use would come from the scripts or tools the agent runs. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Nsdi Topic Selection safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Nsdi Topic Selection use?

Nsdi Topic Selection is published under the MIT licence (the repository's licence). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Nsdi Topic Selection use?

About 1.7k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 6.9k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full.

What are the alternatives to Nsdi Topic Selection?

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Who maintains Nsdi Topic Selection?

brycewang-stanford (a GitHub user) maintains it in brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills, which has 1,228 GitHub stars. The repository holds 2,387 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on September 27, 2026.

Source: brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.