Agent skill

Usenixsec Review Process

by brycewang-stanford in brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills

A skill your agent uses when reasoning about how a USENIX Security Symposium cycle actually decides — early-reject notifications, multi-round reviewing, the retirement of Major Revision in favor of…

MITAuto-check passedSecurity

Install Usenixsec Review Process

skills CLI
$ npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill usenixsec-review-process -a claude-code

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

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills usenixsec-review-process --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/USENIX-Security-Skills/skills/usenixsec-review-process .claude/skills/usenixsec-review-process && 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
usenixsec-review-process
GitHub stars
1.2k
Token cost
~1.3k tokens
SKILL.md length
555 words
Files
1
Skills in repo
2,387
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

A skill your agent uses when reasoning about how a USENIX Security Symposium cycle actually decides — early-reject notifications, multi-round reviewing, the retirement of Major Revision in favor of…

  • Works in 4 steps: Ethics adequacy is a gate, not a score.… → Threat-model realism. An attack needing… → Openness posture. Since the Open Science… → …
  • Reasoning about how a USENIX Security Symposium cycle actually decides — early-reject notifications
  • SKILL.md covers The cycle pipeline, with '26…, The decision vocabulary…, What reviewers here weigh and Reading each email, plus 3 more sections
  • Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md

What it does

Usenixsec Review Process is an agent skill from brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills. Use when reasoning about how a USENIX Security Symposium cycle actually decides — early-reject notifications, multi-round reviewing, the retirement of Major Revision in favor of shepherd-approval acceptances, resubmission restrictions between cycles, and what each notification email means for planning.

Its SKILL.md is about 1.3k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. It is a single SKILL.md file with no bundled scripts.

It sits in Security. 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

  • Reasoning about how a USENIX Security Symposium cycle actually decides — early-reject notifications
  • Multi-round reviewing
  • The retirement of Major Revision in favor of shepherd-approval acceptances
  • Resubmission restrictions between cycles

Example prompts

  • “/usenixsec-review-process”

Workflow steps

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

  1. Ethics adequacy is a gate, not a score. Weak Ethical Considerations content
  2. Threat-model realism. An attack needing implausible attacker position, or a
  3. Openness posture. Since the Open Science policy, a vague availability story
  4. Measurement validity. Vantage-point, time-window, and ground-truth

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

Usenixsec Review Process loads about 1.3k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 82 tokens; SKILL.md has 555 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~82
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~1.3k

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). 555 words, ~1,338 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/usenixsec-review-process/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder).
name
usenixsec-review-process
description
Use when reasoning about how a USENIX Security Symposium cycle actually decides — early-reject notifications, multi-round reviewing, the retirement of Major Revision in favor of shepherd-approval acceptances, resubmission restrictions between cycles, and what each notification email means for planning.

USENIX Security Review Process

USENIX Security reviews in two annual cycles, each a self-contained pipeline from registration to notification. The '26 cycle mechanics below were read from usenix.org pages on 2026-07-08 (via search renderings; direct fetch 403'd), with the '25 reviewing-model page as documented history. The '27 mechanics under chairs Adam Doupé (Arizona State) and Andrei Sabelfeld (Chalmers) are only partially posted — treat everything here as one venue-generation's snapshot.

The cycle pipeline, with '26 dates as the worked example

StageCycle 1 ('26)Cycle 2 ('26)What is happening
RegistrationAug 19, 2025Jan 29, 2026HotCRP record frozen; bidding data set
SubmissionAug 26, 2025Feb 5, 2026Format/policy screening begins
Early rejectOct 7, 2025Mar 17, 2026Bottom of the pool exits after first-round reads
Final notificationDec 4, 2025May 14, 2026Accept / shepherd-approval / reject
Finals dueJan 15, 2026Jun 11, 2026Shepherding + Phase-1 AE complete

The '25 model (last fully published) shows the shape inside those windows: two first-round reviews; online discussion; survivors gain two more reviews in round two; authors respond; the committee discusses to a decision. Expect roughly that structure until the current cycle's reviewing-model page says otherwise (待核实 for '27).

The decision vocabulary changed — don't plan on 2025 rules

Through '25, USENIX Security ran an Accept / Invited Major Revision / Reject scheme, where a major revision returned to the same reviewers in a later cycle. The '26 CFP retired major revisions. The current outcomes:

  • Accept — proceed to camera-ready and mandatory artifact-availability check.
  • Accepted on Shepherd Approval — the committee wants the paper conditional on changes a two-week shepherding pass can hold: clarifications, explicit limitations, calibrated claims. Not a lane for new experiments.
  • Early reject / reject — out of the cycle. Whether and when the work may return is governed by per-year resubmission restrictions; the '26 CFP delegated restrictions on its Cycle-2 rejects to the '27 chairs. Always check the current restriction text before queuing a resubmission — this is the venue's most frequently misremembered rule.

Strategic consequence: the paper must be finished at submission. The old major-revision safety net — submit at 85% and repair through revision — no longer exists; its replacement (shepherding) fixes prose, not evidence.

Show full SKILL.md (194 more words)Show less

What reviewers here weigh

Beyond ordinary top-venue novelty/rigor screens, this committee applies filters that surprise authors from adjacent fields:

  1. Ethics adequacy is a gate, not a score. Weak Ethical Considerations content can trigger required revisions mid-review or sink the paper regardless of technique (the ethics guidelines page is explicit that expectations bind).
  2. Threat-model realism. An attack needing implausible attacker position, or a defense evaluated only against non-adaptive adversaries, loses reviewers who ask "who does this actually affect?"
  3. Openness posture. Since the Open Science policy, a vague availability story is a review-visible weakness, not a post-acceptance detail.
  4. Measurement validity. Vantage-point, time-window, and ground-truth skepticism is a house specialty.

Reading each email

text
Early reject      → 4 reviews were not spent on you; the pool's bottom tier.
                    Diagnose fit and framing, not just polish. Consider
                    usenixsec-topic-selection before re-targeting.
Reject (final)    → full reviews attached; mine them for the resubmission and
                    check the current cross-cycle restriction before re-queuing.
Shepherd approval → acceptance-in-waiting; scope the change list within 48h
                    (see usenixsec-author-response).
Accept            → the artifact clock is already running
                    (see usenixsec-camera-ready).

Confidentiality and conduct

Submissions are confidential to the committee; reviewer identities are hidden; contacting reviewers or attempting to identify them is out of bounds. Conflicts declared at registration drive assignment — fabricating conflicts to dodge a skeptical expert is chair-level misconduct at USENIX as elsewhere.

Reverify each cycle

  • The current reviewing-model description, response phase, and round structure.
  • Decision categories and shepherding window ('27 待核实).
  • Resubmission restrictions between cycles and across years.
  • Early-reject and notification dates for the live cycle.

Output format

text
[Cycle position] stage now + next date that matters
[Decision model] outcomes in force this cycle (verified on: <date>)
[Exposure] ethics gate / threat-model realism / openness / measurement validity
[Plan] action per possible outcome, with resubmission-restriction check

© 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 USENIX-Security-Skills/skills/usenixsec-review-process of brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 932eb23

Compare with similar skills

Usenixsec Review Process 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.

Usenixsec Review Process compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Usenixsec Review Process this skillbrycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills1.2k—~1.3kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Deepsec Documentation Guidevercel-labs/deepsec8.1k—~956Automated safety check: PassApache-2.0
Skill Scannergetsentry/skills1k4 repos~2.5kAutomated safety check: WarnApache-2.0
Serenity Aleabitoreddityan-labs/serenity-aleabitoreddit4811 repos~3.3kAutomated safety check: PassNone
Security Alert Triageelastic/agent-skills5921 repos~3.5kAutomated safety check: NotesApache-2.0
Shiro Attack CLISummerSec/ShiroAttack22.6k—~945Automated safety check: PassMIT

Similar skills

  • Deepsec Documentation Guide

    vercel-labs/deepsec

    Official

    Points the agent at deepsec's own docs to answer questions about initializing, configuring, resuming, scanning with and extending the vulnerability scanner.

    8.1k GitHub stars~956 tokensUpdated 11 days ago
    SecurityAuto-check passed
  • Skill Scanner

    getsentry/skills

    Official

    Scan agent skills for security issues. An agent skill from getsentry/skills.

    1k GitHub starsUsed in 4 repos~2.5k tokens
    SecurityAuto-check: warnings
  • Serenity Aleabitoreddit

    yan-labs/serenity-aleabitoreddit

    Apply trader Serenity's (@aleabitoreddit) AI/semiconductor supply-chain analytical lens to US-stock ideas and market judgment.

    481 GitHub starsUsed in 1 repo~3.3k tokens
    SecurityAuto-check passed
  • Security Alert Triage

    elastic/agent-skills

    Official

    Triage Elastic Security alerts — gather context, classify threats, create cases, and acknowledge.

    592 GitHub starsUsed in 1 repo~3.5k tokens
    SecurityAuto-check: notes
  • Shiro Attack CLI

    SummerSec/ShiroAttack2

    当用户要求利用、检测或测试 Apache Shiro rememberMe 反序列化漏洞 (Shiro-550, CVE-2016-4437) 时使用。触发词包括 "Shiro"、"rememberMe"、"shiro attack"、"CVE-2016-4437"、"Shiro-550"、"爆破 Shiro key"、"利用 Shiro"、"Shiro…

    2.6k GitHub stars~945 tokensUpdated 4 mo ago
    SecurityAuto-check passed
  • Cve Remediation

    rundeck/rundeck

    Verify if a CVE affects the project and remediate it. An agent skill from rundeck/rundeck.

    6.3k GitHub stars~2.9k tokensUpdated yesterday
    SecurityAuto-check passed

More from brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills

All 2,387 skills in this repo
  • Aaag Data Analysis

    brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills

    A skill your agent uses when running and reporting the analysis for an Annals of the American Association of Geographers manuscript — spatial statistics and modeling, remote-sensing accuracy, or…

    1.2k GitHub stars~1.3k tokensUpdated 13 days ago
    Auto-check passed
  • Aaag Literature Positioning

    brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills

    A skill your agent uses when positioning an Annals of the American Association of Geographers manuscript in the literature — engaging geographic scholarship across the relevant area and the…

    1.2k GitHub stars~1.3k tokensUpdated 13 days ago
    Auto-check passed
  • Aaag Rebuttal

    brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills

    A skill your agent uses when responding to an Annals of the American Association of Geographers decision letter (major/minor revision) — building a point-by-point response to the subject editor and…

    1.2k GitHub stars~1.4k tokensUpdated 13 days ago
    Auto-check passed
  • Aaag Research Design

    brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills

    A skill your agent uses when defending the research design of an Annals of the American Association of Geographers manuscript — spatial/quantitative analysis and GIScience, remote-sensing and…

    1.2k GitHub stars~1.4k tokensUpdated 13 days ago
    Auto-check passed
  • Aaag Review Process

    brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills

    A skill your agent uses when you need to understand how the Annals of the American Association of Geographers evaluates a manuscript — double-anonymous review routed through a subject editor by…

    1.2k GitHub stars~1.3k tokensUpdated 13 days ago
    Auto-check passed
  • Aaag Submission

    brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills

    A skill your agent uses when running the final pre-submission preflight for the Annals of the American Association of Geographers via ScholarOne Manuscripts — area/article-type selection…

    1.2k GitHub stars~1.6k tokensUpdated 13 days ago
    Auto-check passed

Categories

Questions about Usenixsec Review Process

What does Usenixsec Review Process do?

A skill your agent uses when reasoning about how a USENIX Security Symposium cycle actually decides — early-reject notifications, multi-round reviewing, the retirement of Major Revision in favor of…. Usenixsec Review Process is an agent skill from brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills. Use when reasoning about how a USENIX Security Symposium cycle actually decides — early-reject notifications, multi-round reviewing, the retirement of Major Revision in favor of shepherd-approval acceptances, resubmission restrictions between cycles, and what each notification email means for planning.

When should I use Usenixsec Review Process?

Usenixsec Review Process fits situations like: reasoning about how a USENIX Security Symposium cycle actually decides — early-reject notifications; multi-round reviewing; the retirement of Major Revision in favor of shepherd-approval acceptances; resubmission restrictions between cycles.

How do I install Usenixsec Review Process in Claude Code?

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

How do I install Usenixsec Review Process in Codex?

Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill usenixsec-review-process -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (USENIX-Security-Skills/skills/usenixsec-review-process in brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills) into .agents/skills/usenixsec-review-process in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Usenixsec Review Process 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 usenixsec-review-process -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/usenixsec-review-process, .gemini/skills/usenixsec-review-process, .github/skills/usenixsec-review-process and .opencode/skills/usenixsec-review-process in your project.

What does Usenixsec Review Process need to run?

SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: Usenixsec Review Process is instructions for the agent only.

Does Usenixsec Review Process 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 Usenixsec Review Process 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 Usenixsec Review Process use?

Usenixsec Review Process 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 Usenixsec Review Process use?

About 1.3k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 5.4k 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 Usenixsec Review Process?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Usenixsec Review Process: Deepsec Documentation Guide (vercel-labs/deepsec, 8.1k stars), Skill Scanner (getsentry/skills, 1k stars), Serenity Aleabitoreddit (yan-labs/serenity-aleabitoreddit, 481 stars) and Security Alert Triage (elastic/agent-skills, 592 stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Usenixsec Review Process?

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.