issta-topic-selection

Research

Use when deciding whether a project is a strong ISSTA fit versus ICSE, FSE, ASE, ICST, PLDI/CAV, or an SE journal, identifying whether the contribution is a testing/analysis technique, characterizing its evaluation shape, and sharpening the framing before writing begins.

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Source SKILL.md: https://github.com/brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills/blob/HEAD/ISSTA-Skills/skills/issta-topic-selection/SKILL.md

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ISSTA Topic Selection

Use this before writing. ISSTA is the venue for techniques that test or analyze software — that find, characterize, or reason about program behaviour and defects — evaluated on real subjects. The routing decision is mostly about whether that is the core of the contribution, or an ingredient in something broader.

Fit test

Prefer ISSTA when the contribution is a testing or analysis technique: test generation, fuzzing, symbolic or concolic execution, static/dynamic analysis, fault localization, program-repair evaluation, sanitizers, or an empirical study about testing and analysis.
Route to ICSE or FSE when the contribution is broader software engineering: requirements, design, process, developer studies, or a technique whose testing angle is secondary. These are the general SE flagships; ISSTA is the testing/analysis specialist.
Route to ASE when the core is automation of an SE task and the testing/analysis content is a means rather than the end.
Route to ICST when the work is testing-focused but a better fit for a testing-specific audience, or is more applied/industrial than ISSTA's research-track bar.
Route to PLDI, POPL, or CAV/TACAS when the contribution is primarily a language/analysis foundation or a verification result, and the empirical bug-finding evaluation is secondary.
Route to an SE journal (TSE, TOSEM, EMSE) when the work needs journal-length exposition or is an extended empirical study beyond a conference's scope.

Fit signal table

Signal in the project	ISSTA reading
A technique that finds bugs / analyzes behaviour, evaluated on real subjects	Core fit — the house genre
A shared benchmark or testing infrastructure others will reuse	Core fit (see Defects4J lineage)
A rigorous empirical study of a testing/analysis technique class	Core fit — evaluation is a contribution
A broad SE process, requirements, or human-factors result	Better at ICSE or FSE
A formal analysis/verification result with a thin empirical side	Better at PLDI/POPL or CAV
A tool-automation contribution where testing is incidental	Better at ASE

Vignette: where a repair project goes

A project produces an automated program-repair technique with a new patch-ranking method and an evaluation on Defects4J. ISSTA reading: strong fit — a testing/analysis technique with a real benchmark and a bug-finding-adjacent evaluation. Reframe it as a study of why existing repair tools produce incorrect patches and it is still ISSTA (an evaluation contribution). Turn it into a formal soundness result about the repair calculus with little empirical evaluation, and PLDI or CAV becomes the better home; grow it into a broad process for integrating repair into developer workflows, and ICSE fits better.

Sharpening moves before committing

Name the technique and the property it targets. If the core is not a testing/analysis technique or a study of one, the ISSTA framing does not exist.
Confirm an established benchmark exists or can be built; an evaluation a reviewer cannot compare to prior work is a quiet fit failure here.
Check the evaluation can be run at a fair, equal budget against the nearest tool — ISSTA's comparison bar is high.
Topic emphasis drifts between editions; scan the current call's topics of interest before final routing.

Is the core a technique that tests or analyzes software,
evaluated on real subjects against a fair baseline?
  yes -> ISSTA is a strong candidate
  broader SE / process / human factors -> ICSE / FSE
  automation-first -> ASE ; testing-applied -> ICST
  formal / verification-first -> PLDI / POPL / CAV

Output format

[Fit] strong ISSTA / possible ISSTA / better elsewhere
[Best venue] ISSTA / ICSE / FSE / ASE / ICST / PLDI / CAV / journal
[Contribution sentence] <one sentence naming technique + property>
[Top rejection risk] <originality / evaluation / comparison / scope>
[Next action] <technique work, benchmark choice, framing, or venue switch>