mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

TDAD: Test-Driven Agentic Development - Reducing Code Regressions in AI Coding Agents via Graph-Based Impact Analysis

arXiv 2603.17973 ↗First posted 18 Mar 2026cs.SE cs.AIcited by 2

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

Abstract (arXiv)

AI coding agents can resolve real-world software issues, yet they frequently introduce regressions -- breaking tests that previously passed. Current benchmarks focus almost exclusively on resolution rate, leaving regression behavior under-studied. This paper presents TDAD (Test-Driven Agentic Development), an open-source tool that performs pre-change impact analysis for AI coding agents. TDAD builds a dependency map between source code and tests so that before committing a patch, the agent knows which tests to verify and can self-correct. The map is delivered as a lightweight agent skill -- a static text file the agent queries at runtime. Evaluated on SWE-bench Verified with two open-weight models running on consumer hardware (Qwen3-Coder 30B, 100 instances; Qwen3.5-35B-A3B, 25 instances), TDAD reduced regressions by 70% (6.08% to 1.82%) compared to a vanilla baseline. In contrast, adding TDD procedural instructions without targeted test context increased regressions to 9.94% -- worse than no intervention at all. When deployed as an agent skill with a different model and framework, TDAD improved issue-resolution rate from 24% to 32%, confirming that surfacing contextual information outperforms prescribing procedural workflows. All code, data, and logs are publicly available at https://github.com/pepealonso95/TDAD.

Key facts. Cited by 2 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 10 of its 23 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 18 Mar 2026.

Builds on

10 of 23 references.

Closest ancestors · 5

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2026Test-Driven AI Agent Definition (TDAD): Compiling Tool-Using Agents from Behavioral Specifications9 Mar
  2. 2026SWE-CI: Evaluating Agent Capabilities in Maintaining Codebases via Continuous Integration4 Mar
  3. 2026Qwen3-Coder-Next Technical Report28 Feb
  4. 2024OpenHands: An Open Platform for AI Software Developers as Generalist Agents23 Jul
  5. 2024SWE-agent: Agent-Computer Interfaces Enable Automated Software Engineering6 May

Other references · 5

  1. 2023SWE-bench: Can Language Models Resolve Real-World GitHub Issues?cited by 3,193
  2. 2024From Local to Global: A Graph RAG Approach to Query-Focused Summarizationcited by 1,411
  3. 2024AutoCodeRover: Autonomous Program Improvementcited by 272
  4. 2025SWE-Bench++: A Framework for the Scalable Generation of Software Engineering Benchmarks from Open-Source Repositoriescited by 27
  5. 2025Tests as Prompt: A Test-Driven-Development Benchmark for LLM Code Generationcited by 5

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 2.

2 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026ABTest: Behavior-Driven Testing for AI Coding Agents
  2. 2025TENET: One Step Toward Test-Driven Development for Repository-Level Code Generation
  3. 2026AgentAssay: Token-Efficient Regression Testing for Non-Deterministic AI Agent Workflows
  4. 2026GTDD: Generative Test-Driven Development for AI Coding Agents with Adversarial Testing
  5. 2026TDD-Agent: Test-Driven Reasoning for Code Generation
  6. 2026Trajectory-Aware Benchmark Subset Selection for Cost-Efficient Software Engineering Agent Regression Testing
  7. 2026From Runnable to Shippable: Multi-Agent Test-Driven Development for Generating Full-Stack Web Applications from Requirements
  8. 2025TDFlow: Agentic Workflows for Test Driven Development