# Agentic Software Issue Resolution with Large Language Models: A Survey

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.22256 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.22256/

## Key facts

- Cited by 6 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Software engineering coding agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use.
- Builds on 161 of its 311 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 24 Dec 2025.

## Placed in

- LLM agents and tool use / [Software engineering coding agents](https://mlsanity.com/agents/software-engineering-coding-agents/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 161)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [GPT-4 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08774/) (2023)
- [Proximal Policy Optimization Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.06347/) (2017)
- [The Llama 3 Herd of Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.21783/) (2024)
- [Qwen3 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.09388/) (2025)
- [Self-Consistency Improves Chain of Thought Reasoning in Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.11171/) (2022)
- [Lost in the Middle: How Language Models Use Long Contexts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.03172/) (2023)
- [SWE-bench: Can Language Models Resolve Real-World GitHub Issues?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.06770/) (2023)
- [Qwen Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.16609/) (2023)
- [SWE-agent: Agent-Computer Interfaces Enable Automated Software Engineering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.15793/) (2024)
- [Domain Randomization for Transferring Deep Neural Networks from Simulation to the Real World](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.06907/) (2017)
- [From Local to Global: A Graph RAG Approach to Query-Focused Summarization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.16130/) (2024)
- [A Survey on LLM-as-a-Judge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.15594/) (2024)
- [Qwen2.5-Coder Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.12186/) (2024)
- [OpenHands: An Open Platform for AI Software Developers as Generalist Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.16741/) (2024)
- [A Survey on Large Language Models for Code Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.00515/) (2024)
- [GLM-4.5: Agentic, Reasoning, and Coding (ARC) Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.06471/) (2025)
- [Large Language Models for Software Engineering: A Systematic Literature Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.10620/) (2023)
- [Darwin Godel Machine: Open-Ended Evolution of Self-Improving Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.22954/) (2025)
- [Training Software Engineering Agents and Verifiers with SWE-Gym](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.21139/) (2024)
- [SWE-smith: Scaling Data for Software Engineering Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.21798/) (2025)
- [SWE-Bench Pro: Can AI Agents Solve Long-Horizon Software Engineering Tasks?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.16941/) (2025)
- [SWE-RL: Advancing LLM Reasoning via Reinforcement Learning on Open Software Evolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.18449/) (2025)
- [RepairAgent: An Autonomous, LLM-Based Agent for Program Repair](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17134/) (2024)
- [The Landscape of Agentic Reinforcement Learning for LLMs: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.02547/) (2025)
- [SWE-bench Multimodal: Do AI Systems Generalize to Visual Software Domains?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.03859/) (2024)
- [Large Language Model-Based Agents for Software Engineering: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.02977/) (2024)
- [Multi-SWE-bench: A Multilingual Benchmark for Issue Resolving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.02605/) (2025)
- [AI Agents vs. Agentic AI: A Conceptual Taxonomy, Applications and Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.10468/) (2025)
- [Qwen2.5-1M Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.15383/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [From Laboratory to Real-World Applications: Benchmarking Agentic Code Reasoning at the Repository Level](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.03731/) (2026)
- [Learning When to Remember: Risk-Sensitive Contextual Bandits for Abstention-Aware Memory Retrieval in LLM-Based Coding Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.27283/) (2026)
- [Agentic Agile-V: From Vibe Coding to Verified Engineering in Software and Hardware Development](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.20456/) (2026)
- [RealisticTritonBench: A Benchmark for Triton-Kernel Generation in Real-World AI Frameworks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.12004/) (2026)
- [Graphectory Viewer: A Tool for Process-Centric Analysis of Agentic Software Trajectories](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.17195/) (2026)
- [Beyond Textual Repository Exploration: Dual-Modal Structural Reasoning for Agentic Issue Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.01929/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Software issue resolution aims to address real-world issues in software repositories based on natural language descriptions provided by users, and represents a key aspect of software maintenance. With the rapid development of large language models (LLMs) in reasoning and generation, LLM-based approaches have made significant progress in automated software issue resolution. However, resolving real-world software issues is inherently complex and requires long-horizon reasoning, iterative exploration, and feedback-driven decision-making, which demand agentic capabilities beyond conventional single-step approaches. Recently, LLM-based agentic systems have emerged as a promising research direction for software issue resolution, accompanied by rapid growth in the relevant literature. Advances in agentic software issue resolution can not only greatly improve the efficiency and quality of software maintenance, but also provide a realistic environment for evaluating the reasoning, planning, and execution capabilities of agentic systems, thereby bridging artificial intelligence and software engineering. This work presents a systematic survey of 242 recent studies at the forefront of research on LLM-based agentic software issue resolution. It outlines the general workflow of the task and establishes a taxonomy across three dimensions: benchmarks, techniques, and empirical studies. Furthermore, it highlights reinforcement learning as an increasingly important training paradigm for agentic systems in software engineering. Finally, it summarizes key challenges and outlines promising directions for future research.