thedixitjain RSS Artifact Evaluation
Package the artifacts as if a skeptical peer lab will pick them up — because at RSS, that is the actual evaluation mechanism. No badge track or artifact committee was verified for the 2026 cycle (待核实 each edition); the discipline is therefore self-imposed, and the reward is post-publication: RSS papers are free to every reader at roboticsproceedings.org, so strong artifacts get found and reused quickly.
The robotics artifact stack
Inventory what the paper's claims actually rest on, layer by layer:
| Layer | Artifact | Review-time state | Release state |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claim analysis | Scripts turning logs into tables | in supplement | public repo |
| Evidence corpus | Trial ledger + footage | anonymized | full, licensed |
| Learned components | Policy/model weights + training configs | weights or recipe | both |
| Software stack | Planner/controller code, sim environments | source in archive | tagged release |
| Hardware layer | Platform ledger, CAD for custom parts, BOM | described in PDF | files where possible |
| Protocol | Reset/intervention/success-criterion doc | in supplement | versioned doc |
The stack ordering is a triage order: the top layers are cheap and non-negotiable; the bottom layers may be partially closed for legitimate reasons — but each closure needs one honest sentence in the paper.
Review-time state (anonymous)
- Everything ships through the supplementary channel by its own deadline
(
rss-supplementary); no external links — the 2026 CFP admits links only in the camera-ready. - Scrub authorship trails ML packaging misses: ROS package names carrying lab acronyms, URDF files naming custom rigs after people, commit history, notebook metadata, cluster paths.
- Optimize for a ten-minute inspection: a reviewer who opens the archive should be able to regenerate one small table and watch one labeled clip without reading documentation twice.
Release-time state (public)
- Swap placeholders for a public repository, choose a real license (code and data may need different ones), and archive a citable snapshot (e.g., a DOI-minting service) so citations outlive lab servers.
- Publish the trial ledger and analysis scripts together — this is the pairing that lets others audit rather than merely admire the result.
- Weights too large to host? Publish the training recipe, seeds, and the evaluation harness, and say which reported numbers depend on the exact checkpoint.
- Update the camera-ready to point at the release; RSS explicitly welcomes links
there (
rss-camera-ready).
Mechanical anonymity sweep for robotics archives
Robotics repositories leak identity in places generic checklists never look; run greps before packaging:
# lab and platform tells in code, configs, and robot descriptions
grep -riE "(lab|univ|institute|group)[-_a-z]*" --include="*.yaml" --include="*.xacro" .
grep -rl "<your-lab-acronym>" . # ROS package prefixes
find . -name "*.urdf" -o -name "*.xacro" | xargs grep -l "author\|copyright"
# history and metadata
rm -rf .git; find . -name "*.ipynb" -exec jq '.metadata' {} \;
exiftool supplement_video.mp4 | grep -iE "creator|artist|gps|serial"
Then rename: packages, launch files, and URDF link names that encode the lab or a person ("annas_gripper_v3") are as identifying as an author block.
Sizing the inspection to reality
- Assume the archive gets ten minutes at review time and an afternoon post-publication; order the README for the ten-minute reader and link deeper.
- Put the one-command table regeneration first in the README; it is the highest belief-per-minute artifact the package contains.
- State expected runtimes next to every command — a reviewer who hits a silent 20-minute script assumes it is broken.
Handling the un-releasable
Robotics has honest closure cases — proprietary platforms, safety-critical controllers, partner data. The rule: closure is declared per stack layer, with a replication path around it ("the controller API is proprietary; we release the planner and the recorded command streams so the planning claim remains auditable"). What kills credibility is not the closed layer; it is discovering it after publication.
License and citation plumbing at release
- Code and data usually want different licenses; a permissive code license does not cover collected trial data or footage of identifiable environments.
- Third-party components inherited through the software stack (simulators, vendor SDKs, ROS packages) carry terms that survive your packaging — audit before promising "fully open."
- Add a machine-readable citation file pointing at the roboticsproceedings.org
entry and its
10.15607/RSS.*DOI, so downstream users cite the venue version rather than a preprint. - Pin a release tag matching the camera-ready ("as-published"); development can continue on main without eroding the paper's evidentiary snapshot.
- Record hosting longevity: lab servers rot, which is why the citable snapshot in an archival service is the load-bearing copy.
Output format
[Stack inventory] <layer -> artifact -> state>
[Ten-minute test] table regenerated <y/n> | clip labeled <y/n>
[Anonymity findings] <ros-names/urdf/history/paths>
[Closure declarations] <layer -> reason -> replication path>
[Release checklist] repo / license / citable snapshot / ledger+scripts / camera-ready link
Source: brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills → RSS-Skills/skills/rss-artifact-evaluation/SKILL.md