atc-reproducibility

ATC Reproducibility

Build the reproducibility story alongside the system, not at the deadline. ATC has an active artifact culture inherited from USENIX: reviewers expect a runnable, anonymized artifact at review time, and after acceptance an Artifact Evaluation Committee awards Available / Functional / Reproduced badges (see atc-artifact-evaluation). The through-line is that a systems result other people can re-run is worth more than one they must take on faith — and systems provenance cannot be reconstructed after the fact.

Pin what you cannot reconstruct

Record these at collection time; none can be recovered at the deadline:

[Hardware]   CPU/NIC/SSD models, core/memory counts, firmware/BIOS where it matters
[OS/kernel]  kernel version, distro, relevant sysctl/tuning, hugepages/NUMA settings
[Toolchain]  compiler, library, and runtime versions; build flags
[Workload]   trace source + extraction date, generator version + seeds, request mix
[Method]     warm-up window, measurement duration, run count, aggregation method
[Code]       commit SHAs for your system and every baseline; patches applied

A turnkey path to the headline numbers

The single most valuable artifact property is that an evaluator can regenerate your paper's main figures and tables:

• Ship a claim-to-experiment map: paper claim → script → expected figure/table → expected runtime.
• Provide a one-command entry point per headline result (./run_fig3.sh) that does setup, run, and plot.
• Give a small-scale mode for evaluators who lack your hardware (fewer nodes, a trace sample), and state clearly which results are full-scale-only and why.
• Log expected outputs and tolerances so an evaluator knows what "reproduced" looks like given measurement noise.

Pinned, portable environments

• Prefer a container (Dockerfile) or a pinned environment (lockfile, requirements, Nix) over "install these 30 packages by hand."
• Where the result depends on kernel features or hardware (RDMA, SPDK, io_uring, specific NICs), say so explicitly and document the required host, since a container cannot abstract the hardware away.
• Include traces/datasets (or documented, durable access), not just the query that produced them.

Anonymized-but-runnable review package

At submission the artifact must be runnable yet double-blind:

• No owner strings, cluster hostnames, lab or product names, or identity-revealing URLs in code, configs, logs, or commit metadata.
• Mirror any linked repository behind an anonymizing service; scrub .git/ from archives.
• The system's own name can de-anonymize you — use a neutral placeholder if the real name is identifying, and reconcile it in the camera-ready.
• Verify the package runs from a clean checkout on a fresh machine — "works on the author's laptop" is the most common Functional failure.

Honest reproducibility posture

• If a result cannot be shared (proprietary trace, confidential deployment), say so and why, and provide the closest reproducible substitute — silence reads as a weakness.
• Distinguish reproducible (same artifact, same numbers) from replicable (independent reimplementation) and claim only what you support.
• For experience/deployed-systems papers, provide what you can — configs, anonymized traces, analysis scripts — even when the production system itself cannot ship.

Output format

[Provenance] hardware/OS/toolchain/workload/method/code pinned at collection time? gaps?
[Turnkey] claim-to-experiment map + one-command runs + small-scale mode present? yes/no
[Environment] container or pinned lockfile? hardware dependencies documented?
[Anonymity] artifact runnable AND double-blind (no names/hosts/owner strings)? yes/no
[Clean-machine] runs from a fresh checkout on a clean host? yes/no
[Badge readiness] on track for Available / Functional / Reproduced? blockers?