# Detecting Outdated Code Element References in Software Repository Documentation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.01479 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.01479/

## Key facts

- Cited by 5 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 2 Dec 2022.

## Built on by (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [Evaluating the Use of LLMs for Documentation to Code Traceability](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.16440/) (2025)
- [Context Rot in AI-Assisted Software Development: Repurposing Documentation Consistency for AI Configuration Artifacts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.09090/) (2026)
- [LLM-Based Code Documentation Generation and Multi-Judge Evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.09852/) (2026)
- [Security and Privacy in Agentic AI: Grand Challenges and Future Directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.06608/) (2026)
- [The Other Half of Workflow Portability: Evidence-Backed HPC Site Profiles with Agentic Discovery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.00971/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Outdated documentation is a pervasive problem in software development, preventing effective use of software, and misleading users and developers alike. We posit that one possible reason why documentation becomes out of sync so easily is that developers are unaware of when their source code modifications render the documentation obsolete. Ensuring that the documentation is always in sync with the source code takes considerable effort, especially for large codebases. To address this situation, we propose an approach that can automatically detect code element references that survive in the documentation after all source code instances have been deleted. In this work, we analysed over 3,000 GitHub projects and found that most projects contain at least one outdated code element reference at some point in their history. We submitted GitHub issues to real-world projects containing outdated references detected by our approach, some of which have already led to documentation fixes. As an initiative toward keeping documentation in software repositories up-to-date, we have made our implementation available for developers to scan their GitHub projects for outdated code element references.