A skill your agent uses when deciding whether a formal-methods / verification project belongs at TACAS (ETAPS) or a sibling like CAV, VMCAI, FMCAD, SPIN, or a journal, AND — distinctively — which of…

MITAuto-check passed

Install Tacas Topic Selection

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

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

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills tacas-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/TACAS-Skills/skills/tacas-topic-selection .claude/skills/tacas-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
tacas-topic-selection
GitHub stars
1.2k
Token cost
~1.6k tokens
SKILL.md length
643 words
Files
1
Skills in repo
2,387
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

A skill your agent uses when deciding whether a formal-methods / verification project belongs at TACAS (ETAPS) or a sibling like CAV, VMCAI, FMCAD, SPIN, or a journal, AND — distinctively — which of…

  • Deciding whether a formal-methods / verification project belongs at TACAS (ETAPS)
  • SKILL.md covers First cut: is this TACAS, or a…, Second cut: which of the four…, Contribution shapes TACAS… and The tool-vs-research and…, plus 2 more sections
  • Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md
  • A sibling like CAV

What it does

Tacas Topic Selection is an agent skill from brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills. Use when deciding whether a formal-methods / verification project belongs at TACAS (ETAPS) or a sibling like CAV, VMCAI, FMCAD, SPIN, or a journal, AND — distinctively — which of TACAS's four categories (research, case-study, regular tool, tool-demonstration) it fits, plus whether the work is a SV-COMP competition contribution rather than a paper.

Its SKILL.md is about 1.6k 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

  • Deciding whether a formal-methods / verification project belongs at TACAS (ETAPS)
  • A sibling like CAV
  • — distinctively — which of TACASs four categories (research
  • Tool-demonstration) it fits

Example prompts

  • “/tacas-topic-selection”

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

Tacas Topic Selection loads about 1.6k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 93 tokens; SKILL.md has 643 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~93
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~1.6k

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). 643 words, ~1,575 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/tacas-topic-selection/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder).
name
tacas-topic-selection
description
Use when deciding whether a formal-methods / verification project belongs at TACAS (ETAPS) or a sibling like CAV, VMCAI, FMCAD, SPIN, or a journal, AND — distinctively — which of TACAS's four categories (research, case-study, regular tool, tool-demonstration) it fits, plus whether the work is a SV-COMP competition contribution rather than a paper.

TACAS Topic Selection

Decide two things before drafting: is this TACAS, and which TACAS category. TACAS — Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems — is the ETAPS conference at the tool-and-algorithm end of verification: model checking, program analysis, SMT and decision procedures, testing and synthesis, and the systems that implement them. Its defining feature versus its siblings is that a usable, evaluated tool is a first-class contribution, backed by a mandatory artifact. A brilliant idea with no tool and no experiment can still be a research paper, but a paper that is really a benchmark ranking is a SV-COMP contribution, not a TACAS paper.

First cut: is this TACAS, or a sibling?

TACAS overlaps heavily with the other verification venues, so decide by emphasis and calendar, not by topic alone.

Signal in your projectBetter homeWhy
A tool or algorithm for constructing/analysing systems, with real experiments, ETAPS timing fitsTACASTools-and-algorithms core; mandatory-artifact culture; LNCS open access
Deep new verification theory/algorithm, breadth of formal methods, larger page roomCAVClosest sibling; broader FM flagship, different calendar and process
Principled study of verification/abstract-interpretation foundationsVMCAIVerification, model checking, and abstract interpretation focus
Hardware / SAT-centric formal methods, industrial hardware verificationFMCADIts named center
Explicit-state / software model checking around the SPIN lineageSPINCommunity and tooling match
A full journal-length treatment with proofs and extended evaluationSTTT / FMSD / a journalNo conference page ceiling; STTT is the TACAS-adjacent journal
A verifier to be run on the common task set and rankedSV-COMP (at TACAS)It is a competition entry, not a stand-alone tool paper

CAV is the trap. Many canonical tools (NuSMV, CPAchecker, Storm) debuted at CAV, not TACAS. Differentiate by TACAS's ETAPS context, its tool/tool-demo/case-study categories, its per-category page limits, and its artifact-as-first-class model — and check dblp before assuming a lineage.

Second cut: which of the four categories?

Your contributionCategoryPage limitNote
A new algorithm, encoding, decision procedure, or theory with a correctness argumentRegular research≤16Double-blind; artifact voluntary
Applying existing methods/tools to a substantial real system, with lessonsCase-study≤16Single-blind; artifact voluntary
A usable tool realizing a technique, with an evaluationRegular tool≤16Single-blind; mandatory artifact
A mature tool shown in operation, focused on usage/UI/workflowTool-demonstration≤6Single-blind; mandatory artifact

The category is a commitment: a research paper is judged on the idea and its soundness; a tool paper is judged on the tool and its runnable artifact; a case-study paper is judged on the realism of the system and the honesty of the lessons; a tool-demo is judged on a working demonstration in six pages. Pick the one whose bar your evidence actually clears.

Show full SKILL.md (200 more words)Show less

Contribution shapes TACAS rewards

  • Algorithm / reduction — a new way to construct or analyse systems with a soundness (and often completeness/complexity) argument (the BMC lineage).
  • Tool — a downloadable, evaluated implementation others can point at their own inputs (the CBMC / Z3 lineage), now inseparable from a working artifact.
  • Case study — a substantial application of verification to a real system that teaches the community what works and what breaks at scale.
  • Competition-driven — participation in SV-COMP / VerifyThis that advances shared benchmarks and reproducible comparison.

The tool-vs-research and re-label tests

  • Tool-vs-research test: if the paper's core would survive with the tool removed (an algorithm and a proof), it is a research paper; if the core is the working tool and its evaluation, it is a tool paper — and then the artifact is mandatory.
  • Re-label test: could this be submitted to CAV/VMCAI/FMCAD unchanged and read as native there? If its heart is FM breadth or new theory depth, weigh those venues; TACAS rewards the tool-and-algorithm framing with reproducible experiments.

Cheap reconnaissance before committing

text
[Scope]   scan the last two TACAS proceedings (dblp, Springer LNCS) for your subarea
          -> several recent papers = a reviewer pool exists; none = mismatch or a CAV/FMCAD topic
[Category] find 2-3 recent papers in the category you plan to use; match their evidence depth
[Artifact] if tool/tool-demo, can you package a clean-VM artifact by the post-paper deadline? if
          not, the category is wrong for this cycle
[Calendar] compare the next ETAPS/TACAS deadline with CAV/VMCAI/FMCAD dates -> route to the
          nearest honest fit rather than idling a year

Decision procedure

text
[Is it TACAS?] tool/algorithm to construct/analyse systems + experiments? -> yes; else CAV/VMCAI/FMCAD/journal
[Competition?] a verifier to be ranked on common tasks -> SV-COMP, not a tool paper
[Category] algorithm+proof -> research; usable tool+eval -> regular tool; mature tool in use -> tool-demo;
          real-system application -> case-study
[Blind + artifact] research -> double-blind, voluntary artifact; tool/tool-demo -> single-blind, mandatory artifact
[Verdict] TACAS <category> / sibling venue / SV-COMP / journal, with a one-line reason

Run this before the writing skills; a wrong venue-or-category decision wastes every later step. When the verdict is TACAS, continue with tacas-workflow for the calendar and tacas-writing-style for the paper shape.

© 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 TACAS-Skills/skills/tacas-topic-selection of brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 932eb23

Compare with similar skills

Tacas 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.

Tacas Topic Selection compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Tacas Topic Selection this skillbrycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills1.2k—~1.6kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Santa Methodaffaan-m/ECC276k3 repos~3.1kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Santa Methodaffaan-m/ECC276k—~2.1kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Santa Methodaffaan-m/ECC276k—~1.9kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Formal Methods Reconcilermizchi/skills360—~1.9kAutomated safety check: PassNone
Modern Array Methodsthedaviddias/Front-End-Checklist74k—~494Automated safety check: PassMIT

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Questions about Tacas Topic Selection

What does Tacas Topic Selection do?

A skill your agent uses when deciding whether a formal-methods / verification project belongs at TACAS (ETAPS) or a sibling like CAV, VMCAI, FMCAD, SPIN, or a journal, AND — distinctively — which of…. Tacas Topic Selection is an agent skill from brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills. Use when deciding whether a formal-methods / verification project belongs at TACAS (ETAPS) or a sibling like CAV, VMCAI, FMCAD, SPIN, or a journal, AND — distinctively — which of TACAS's four categories (research, case-study, regular tool, tool-demonstration) it fits, plus whether the work is a SV-COMP competition contribution rather than a paper.

When should I use Tacas Topic Selection?

Tacas Topic Selection fits situations like: deciding whether a formal-methods / verification project belongs at TACAS (ETAPS); A sibling like CAV; — distinctively — which of TACASs four categories (research; tool-demonstration) it fits.

How do I install Tacas Topic Selection in Claude Code?

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

How do I install Tacas Topic Selection in Codex?

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

Can I use Tacas 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 tacas-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/tacas-topic-selection, .gemini/skills/tacas-topic-selection, .github/skills/tacas-topic-selection and .opencode/skills/tacas-topic-selection in your project.

What does Tacas Topic Selection need to run?

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

Does Tacas 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 Tacas 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 Tacas Topic Selection use?

Tacas 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 Tacas Topic Selection use?

About 1.6k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 6.3k 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 Tacas Topic Selection?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Tacas Topic Selection: Santa Method (affaan-m/ECC, 276k stars), Santa Method (affaan-m/ECC, 276k stars), Santa Method (affaan-m/ECC, 276k stars) and Formal Methods Reconciler (mizchi/skills, 360 stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Tacas Topic Selection?

brycewang-stanford (a GitHub user) maintains it in brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills, which has 1,231 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.