Fast camera ready

FAST Camera Ready

Use this after acceptance. FAST papers are published open access by USENIX, free to the public, so the camera-ready is a production step with no APC and no paywall — but with firm final-files dates (FAST '27 Spring: 28 Jul 2026; Fall: 26 Jan 2027) and USENIX formatting requirements. Reopen the current instructions-for-authors, the decision/shepherd email, and the Call for Artifacts before advising.

Camera-ready audit

• De-anonymize completely: restore the author block, affiliations, acknowledgements, funding, and the real system/tool and repository names that double-blind forced you to hide.
• Apply the final format: the USENIX two-column template within the current camera-ready allowance (reported larger than submission — e.g. 13 pages long / 7 short, references excluded). Use the extra space for shepherd-required additions, not scope creep.
• Integrate the required changes from the reviews, the shepherd, or the one-shot revision faithfully — without strengthening claims beyond what was evaluated.
• Permanentize availability: replace every anonymized artifact/trace link with a public, licensed, DOI-issuing archive, and update the availability statement to point at it.
• Add the artifact appendix and badges if you went through artifact evaluation: badges appear on the first page and the appendix details the artifact (fast-artifact-evaluation).
• Confirm registration and presentation obligations; at least one author presents.

De-anonymization sweep

Anonymized at submission	Restore at camera-ready	Watch for
Author block, affiliations	Full, correctly ordered	Wrong order breaks the citation
System / tool name	Real name throughout text, figures, artifact	A leftover placeholder in a caption or a config
Acknowledgements, funding, hardware donors	Restored	Grant numbers required by funders
Self-citations (third person)	Natural first-person where it aids clarity	Over-correcting and double-citing
Device dumps / hostnames redacted for review	Real values only where safe; keep serials out	Re-introducing a serial number needlessly
Artifact / trace link	Public archive DOI	The old anonymized URL surviving in a footnote

USENIX production checks

[Template]   USENIX two-column template, current revision; no manual margin/font edits; 10pt/12pt
[Metadata]   title, authors, affiliations match HotCRP and the PDF; abstract consistent
[Testbed]    the device/firmware table is complete and final; device-state caveats intact
[References] complete, consistent; DOIs where available; references excluded from the page count
[Figures]    vector where possible; latency distributions and plots readable in print; captions self-contained
[Rights]     USENIX publication agreement completed; correct notice on the first page
[Links]      every availability, trace, and artifact link resolves from a logged-out browser
[Appendix]   artifact appendix + earned badges added per the current instructions

Worked example: integrating a one-shot-revision result

The revision required adding a steady-state write-amplification comparison and a crash-consistency test. Camera-ready move: keep the added §5.3 table and §6 crash-test exactly as evaluated, restore the real system name in those sections and the artifact, point the availability statement at the now-public DOI archive, and — using the larger camera-ready budget — expand the device-state caveat into a clear paragraph rather than inflating the claim the AEC and reviewers accepted.

Hedged logistics

• Page allowances, metadata fields, the rights agreement, and exact final-files dates change each cycle; confirm against the decision email and current USENIX author instructions rather than a prior year. The two deadlines have different final-files dates — use the one for your cycle.

Output format

[Camera-ready status] ready / needs fixes / blocked
[De-anonymization] author block / system name / acks / device dumps / links restored? yes/no
[Format] USENIX template, within camera-ready page allowance? yes/no
[Required-change map] <shepherd/revision item -> final edit, no scope creep>
[Availability] anonymized links replaced by DOI archive? artifact appendix + badges added? yes/no
[Remaining owner] <person -> task, against the final-files date>