Tool DemonstrationICPC 2026

Call for Papers

We would like to invite you to submit a tool demonstration paper for the 2026 ICPC Tool and Demonstration Track. This track provides a valuable opportunity for live presentations of prototypes and industry-strength tools.

Tool demonstration papers are expected to describe tools that implement a research approach. The tools are expected to be either mature prototypes or fully developed products ready for commercialization. We also encourage tool demonstration proposals complementing full technical papers. While a technical paper is intended to give the background information and point out the scientific contribution of a new program comprehension approach, the tool demonstration submission provides a unique opportunity to show how the scientific approach has been transferred into a working prototype. Potential authors of the research papers are highly encouraged to submit the corresponding tools in this track. Any of the conference topics of interest are appropriate areas for tool demonstrations.

Format and Submission

Paper:

All submissions must be in PDF format and conform, at time of submission, to the official ACM Primary Article Template, which can be obtained from the ACM Proceedings Template page. LaTeX users should use the sigconf option, as well as the review (to produce line numbers for easy reference by the reviewers) and anonymous (omitting author names) options. To that end, the following LaTeX code can be placed at the start of the LaTeX document:

\documentclass[sigconf,review,anonymous]{acmart}

• All submissions must not exceed 4 pages describing the tool, plus 1 additional page for references (i.e., 4+1 format). All submissions must be in PDF.
• Submissions must strictly conform to the ACM conference proceedings formatting instructions specified above. Alterations of spacing, font size, and other changes that deviate from the instructions may result in desk rejection without further review.
• By submitting to the ICPC 2026 Tool and Demonstration Track, authors acknowledge that they are aware of and agree to be bound by the ACM Policy and Procedures on Plagiarism and the IEEE Plagiarism FAQ. Papers submitted to ICPC 2026 Tool and Demonstration Track must not have been published elsewhere and must not be under review or submitted for review elsewhere whilst under consideration for ICPC 2026 Tool and Demonstration Track. Contravention of this concurrent submission policy will be deemed a serious breach of scientific ethics, and appropriate action will be taken in all such cases. To check for double submission and plagiarism issues, the chairs reserve the right to (1) share the list of submissions with the PC Chairs of other conferences with overlapping review periods and (2) use external plagiarism detection software, under contract to the ACM or IEEE, to detect violations of these policies.
• By submitting your article to an ACM Publication, you are hereby acknowledging that you and your co-authors are subject to all ACM Publications Policies, including ACM’s new Publications Policy on Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects. Alleged violations of this policy or any ACM Publications Policy will be investigated by ACM and may result in a full retraction of your paper, in addition to other potential penalties, as per ACM Publications Policy.
• Please ensure that you and your co-authors obtain an ORCID ID, so you can complete the publishing process for your accepted paper. ACM and IEEE have been involved in ORCID and may collect ORCID IDs from all published authors. We are committed to improve author discoverability, ensure proper attribution and contribute to ongoing community efforts around name normalization; your ORCID ID will help in these efforts.
• By submitting to the ICPC 2026, authors acknowledge that they conform to the authorship policy of the IEEE, submission policy of the IEEE, and the authorship policy of the ACM (and associated FAQ). This includes following these points related to the use of Generative AI:
  • “Generative AI tools and technologies, such as ChatGPT, may not be listed as authors of an ACM published Work. The use of generative AI tools and technologies to create content is permitted but must be fully disclosed in the Work. For example, the authors could include the following statement in the Acknowledgements section of the Work: ChatGPT was utilized to generate sections of this Work, including text, tables, graphs, code, data, citations, etc.). If you are uncertain ­about the need to disclose the use of a particular tool, err on the side of caution, and include a disclosure in the acknowledgements section of the Work.” - ACM
  • “The use of artificial intelligence (AI)–generated text in an article shall be disclosed in the acknowledgements section of any paper submitted to an IEEE Conference or Periodical. The sections of the paper that use AI-generated text shall have a citation to the AI system used to generate the text.” - IEEE
  • “If you are using generative AI software tools to edit and improve the quality of your existing text in much the same way you would use a typing assistant like Grammarly to improve spelling, grammar, punctuation, clarity, engagement or to use a basic word processing system to correct spelling or grammar, it is not necessary to disclose such usage of these tools in your Work.” - ACM

Submissions to the Tool and Demonstration Track that meet the above requirements can be made via the ICPC Tool and Demonstration submission site by the submission deadline. Please, note that the Tool and Demonstration Track will NOT follow a double-anonymous review process. The authors should not anonymize their papers and tools.

Video and Tool Availability:

• The source code or the binaries of the tool must be publicly available, for example via GitHub, Zenodo, Figshare, or hosted on the tool’s website.
• Optionally, authors can include in the abstract the URL of a 3-to-5 minute video screencast, either with annotations or voice-over, that provides a concise version of the tool demo scenario. The video should be posted on YouTube, or hosted on the tool’s website.

Exclusions:

Submissions from the ICPC 2026 General Chair, Program Chairs, their current students and current postdocs are not allowed to any ICPC 2026 track.

Review and Evaluation Criteria:

Each submission will be reviewed by three members of the and Demonstration Program Committee. The committee will review each submission to assess the relevance and quality of the proposed tool demonstration. Submissions should describe the tool (including snapshot and technical details), explain its relevance to program comprehension and the foundations upon which it is based, discuss its level of maturity, and the (expected) adoption and impact.

Publication and Presentation:

Upon notification of acceptance, all authors of accepted papers will receive further instructions for preparing the camera-ready versions of their submissions. If a submission is accepted, at least one author of the paper is required to register for ICPC 2026, attend the conference and present the paper in person. All accepted papers will be published in the conference electronic proceedings. The presentation is expected to be delivered in person, unless this is impossible due to travel limitations (related to, e.g., health, visa, or COVID-19 prevention). Details about the presentations will follow the notifications. The official publication date is the date the proceedings are made available in the ACM or IEEE Digital Libraries. This date may be up to two weeks prior to the first day of ICPC 2026. The official publication date affects the deadline for any patent filings related to published work. Purchases of additional pages in the proceedings are not allowed.

If a submission is accepted, at least one author of the paper is required to have a full registration for ICPC 2026, attend the conference, and present the paper in person. The presentation is expected to be delivered in person, unless this is impossible due to travel limitations (e.g., related to health or visa). Details about the presentations will follow the notifications.