Skip to content

Software Paper Package

This page tracks the publication package for ABMForge as a scientific software project.

Target venues

The current package is primarily shaped around a JOSS-style short software paper. The same material can later be expanded for SoftwareX or Journal of Open Research Software.

Current package

  • paper.md: software paper scaffold.
  • paper.bib: bibliography for the paper.
  • examples/reproducible_study/: reference reproducible study.
  • docs/reproducibility-manifest-v1.md: manifest contract.
  • docs/experiment-archive-v1.md: archive contract.
  • docs/api-stability.md: public alpha API policy.

Submission blockers

Before submission, the following should be completed:

  • public alpha release tag;
  • PyPI or TestPyPI install smoke;
  • DOI or archived release artifact;
  • final author metadata and ORCID, if available;
  • final review of citations and comparison claims;
  • full clean CI run on the release commit;
  • manual review of the generated ODD example;
  • confirmation that the paper remains within the target venue word limit.

Statement of need focus

ABMForge should be positioned as an experiment-native, dataset-first, and reproducibility-oriented Python ABM framework. The paper should not claim that ABMForge is a complete replacement for Mesa, NetLogo, Repast, MASON, or Agents.jl. Its strongest contribution is the research workflow around ABM experiments.

Current limitations to disclose

  • alpha-stage API;
  • no full deterministic state replay guarantee for all model/world/scheduler combinations;
  • PyPI release status should match the actual release state at submission time;
  • generated ODD artifacts require manual scientific review;
  • examples are workflow demonstrations, not empirical validation studies.

Readiness review

The publication readiness review is tracked separately in:

docs/publication-readiness-review.md

That page separates submission blockers, non-blockers, defensible claims, claims to avoid, and pre-submission checks.