Constraint-Guided Multi-Agent Decompilation for Executable Binary Recovery
On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Software engineering coding agents
Abstract (arXiv)
Decompilation -- recovering source code from compiled binaries -- is essential for security analysis, malware reverse engineering, and legacy software maintenance. However, existing decompilers produce code that often fails to compile or execute correctly, limiting their practical utility. We present a multi-agent framework that transforms decompiled code into re-executable source through Multi-level Constraint-Guided Decompilation (MCGD). Our approach employs a hierarchical validation pipeline with three constraint levels: (1) syntactic correctness via parsing, (2) compilability via GCC, and (3) behavioral equivalence via LLM-generated test cases. When validation fails, specialized LLM agents iteratively refine the code using structured error feedback. We evaluate our framework on 1,641 real-world binaries from ExeBench across three decompilers (RetDec, Ghidra, and Angr). Our framework achieves 84-97% re-executability, improving baseline decompiler output by 28-89 percentage points. In comparison with state-of-the-art LLM-based decompilation methods using the same GPT-4o backbone, our approach (84.1%) outperforms LLM4Decompile (80.3%), SK2Decompile (73.9%), and SALT4Decompile (61.8%). Our ablation study reveals that execution-based validation is critical: compile-only approaches achieve 0% behavioral correctness despite 91-99% compilation rates. The system converges efficiently, with 90%+ binaries reaching correctness within 2 iterations at an average cost of 0.03-0.05 per binary. Our results demonstrate that constraint-guided agentic refinement can bridge the gap between raw decompiler output and practically useful source code.
Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Software engineering coding agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 12 of its 47 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 27 Apr 2026.
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12 of 47 references.
References · 12
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- 2021Program Synthesis with Large Language Modelscited by 3,509
- 2023Teaching Large Language Models to Self-Debugcited by 963
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- 2021Asleep at the Keyboard? Assessing the Security of GitHub Copilot's Code Contributionscited by 417
- 2022CodeRL: Mastering Code Generation through Pretrained Models and Deep Reinforcement Learningcited by 342
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- 2017Neural Network-based Graph Embedding for Cross-Platform Binary Code Similarity Detectioncited by 65
- 2023RepairLLaMA: Efficient Representations and Fine-Tuned Adapters for Program Repaircited by 50
- 2019DIRE: A Neural Approach to Decompiled Identifier Namingcited by 36
- 2025ALT4Decompile: Inferring C-aligned Abstract Loop Tree for LLM-Based Binary Decompilationcited by 4
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- 2026When Passing Tests Hides Vulnerabilities: An Empirical Study of Silent Failures in Agentic Systems
- 2026From Dead Code and Static Requirements to Working Engines: Software Revival with Coding Agents
- 2026ARQ: Agentic CodeQL Query Refinement for C/C++ Vulnerability Detection
- 2024AutoSafeCoder: A Multi-Agent Framework for Securing LLM Code Generation through Static Analysis and Fuzz Testing
- 2026AgentDebugX: An Open-Source Toolkit for Failure Observability, Attribution, and Recovery in LLM Agents