mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Do Autonomous Agents Contribute Test Code? A Study of Tests in Agentic Pull Requests

arXiv 2601.03556 ↗First posted 7 Jan 2026cs.SEcited by 4

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

Abstract (arXiv)

Testing is a critical practice for ensuring software correctness and long-term maintainability. As agentic coding tools increasingly submit pull requests (PRs), it becomes essential to understand how testing appears in these agent-driven workflows. Using the AIDev dataset, we present an empirical study of test inclusion in agentic pull requests. We examine how often tests are included, when they are introduced during the PR lifecycle and how test-containing PRs differ from non-test PRs in terms of size, turnaround time, and merge outcomes. Across agents, test-containing PRs are more common over time and tend to be larger and take longer to complete, while merge rates remain largely similar. We also observe variation across agents in both test adoption and the balance between test and production code within test PRs. Our findings provide a descriptive view of testing behavior in agentic pull requests and offer empirical grounding for future studies of autonomous software development.

Key facts. Cited by 4 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 3 of its 22 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 7 Jan 2026.

Builds on

3 of 22 references.

References · 3

  1. 2024Automated Unit Test Improvement using Large Language Models at Metacited by 73
  2. 2023Unit Test Generation using Generative AI : A Comparative Performance Analysis of Autogeneration Toolscited by 13
  3. 2025Hamster: A Large-Scale Study and Characterization of Developer-Written Testscited by 1

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 4.

4 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026Test Coverage Analysis of Agentic Pull Requests
  2. 2026Human-Agent versus Human Pull Requests: A Testing-Focused Characterization and Comparison
  3. 2026How Do AI Coding Agents Contribute to Software Development? an Empirical Study of Agentic Pull Requests
  4. 2026Why Agentic-PRs Get Rejected: A Comparative Study of Coding Agents
  5. 2026Where Do AI Coding Agents Fail? An Empirical Study of Failed Agentic Pull Requests in GitHub
  6. 2026Are Coding Agents Generating Over-Mocked Tests? An Empirical Study
  7. 2026Beyond Bug Fixes: An Empirical Investigation of Post-Merge Code Quality Issues in Agent-Generated Pull Requests
  8. 2026Why Are Agentic Pull Requests Merged or Rejected? An Empirical Study