mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Agents in Software Engineering: Survey, Landscape, and Vision

arXiv 2409.09030 ↗First posted 13 Sep 2024cs.SE cs.AI cs.CLcited by 60

On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Software engineering coding agents

Abstract (arXiv)

In recent years, Large Language Models (LLMs) have achieved remarkable success and have been widely used in various downstream tasks, especially in the tasks of the software engineering (SE) field. We find that many studies combining LLMs with SE have employed the concept of agents either explicitly or implicitly. However, there is a lack of an in-depth survey to sort out the development context of existing works, analyze how existing works combine the LLM-based agent technologies to optimize various tasks, and clarify the framework of LLM-based agents in SE. In this paper, we conduct the first survey of the studies on combining LLM-based agents with SE and present a framework of LLM-based agents in SE which includes three key modules: perception, memory, and action. We also summarize the current challenges in combining the two fields and propose future opportunities in response to existing challenges. We maintain a GitHub repository of the related papers at: https://github.com/DeepSoftwareAnalytics/Awesome-Agent4SE.

Key facts. Cited by 60 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Software engineering coding agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 118 of its 164 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 13 Sep 2024.

Builds on

118 of 164 references.

Closest ancestors · 1

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2024CodeAgent: Enhancing Code Generation with Tool-Integrated Agent Systems for Real-World Repo-level Coding Challenges14 Jan

Other references · 117

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50 most cited of 117 All 117 (JSON)

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2024: 1; 2025: 26; 2026: 33.

60 papers.

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  18. 2026Why Are AI Agent Involved Pull Requests (Fix-Related) Remain Unmerged? An Empirical Studycited by 3
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50 most cited of 60 All 60 (JSON)

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