# Documentation-Guided Agentic Codebase Migration from C to Rust

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.14634 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.14634/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Software engineering coding agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use.
- Builds on 35 of its 91 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 14 May 2026.

## 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 35)

- [Judging LLM-as-a-Judge with MT-Bench and Chatbot Arena](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.05685/) (2023)
- [SWE-bench: Can Language Models Resolve Real-World GitHub Issues?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.06770/) (2023)
- [MetaGPT: Meta Programming for A Multi-Agent Collaborative Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.00352/) (2023)
- [OpenAI GPT-5 System Card](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.03267/) (2025)
- [Teaching Large Language Models to Self-Debug](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.05128/) (2023)
- [ChatDev: Communicative Agents for Software Development](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.07924/) (2023)
- [Kimi K2: Open Agentic Intelligence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.20534/) (2025)
- [MapCoder: Multi-Agent Code Generation for Competitive Problem Solving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.11403/) (2024)
- [RepoAgent: An LLM-Powered Open-Source Framework for Repository-level Code Documentation Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.16667/) (2024)
- [AgileCoder: Dynamic Collaborative Agents for Software Development based on Agile Methodology](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.11912/) (2024)
- [VERT: Verified Equivalent Rust Transpilation with Large Language Models as Few-Shot Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.18852/) (2024)
- [CRUST-Bench: A Comprehensive Benchmark for C-to-safe-Rust Transpilation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.15254/) (2025)
- [EvoC2Rust: A Skeleton-guided Framework for Project-Level C-to-Rust Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.04295/) (2025)
- [RPG: A Repository Planning Graph for Unified and Scalable Codebase Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.16198/) (2025)
- [C2SaferRust: Transforming C Projects into Safer Rust with NeuroSymbolic Techniques](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.14257/) (2025)
- [Syzygy: Dual Code-Test C to (safe) Rust Translation using LLMs and Dynamic Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.14234/) (2024)
- [Decoding the Configuration of AI Coding Agents: Insights from Claude Code Projects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.09268/) (2025)
- [RustMap: Towards Project-Scale C-to-Rust Migration via Program Analysis and LLM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.17741/) (2025)
- [SACTOR: LLM-Driven Correct and Idiomatic C to Rust Translation with Static Analysis and FFI-Based Verification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.12511/) (2025)
- [To Tag, or Not to Tag: Translating C's Unions to Rust's Tagged Unions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.11418/) (2024)
- [Translating C To Rust: Lessons from a User Study](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.14174/) (2024)
- [RustRepoTrans: Repository-level Code Translation Benchmark Targeting Rust](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.13990/) (2024)
- [Translating Large-Scale C Repositories to Idiomatic Rust](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.20617/) (2025)
- [Concrat: An Automatic C-to-Rust Lock API Translator for Concurrent Programs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.10943/) (2023)
- [Specification-Driven Code Translation Powered by Large Language Models: How Far Are We?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.04590/) (2024)
- [Forcrat: Automatic I/O API Translation from C to Rust via Origin and Capability Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.01427/) (2025)
- [CodeWiki: Evaluating AI's Ability to Generate Holistic Documentation for Large-Scale Codebases](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.24428/) (2025)
- [The Android Platform Security Model (2023)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.05572/) (2019)
- [Rusty Linux: Advances in Rust for Linux Kernel Development](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.18431/) (2024)
- [NL in the Middle: Code Translation with LLMs and Intermediate Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.08627/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Migrating legacy C repositories to Rust promises stronger memory safety, but existing translators often work at the level of files or functions and miss architectural intent. We present RustPrint, a documentation-guided agentic framework for repository-level C-to-Rust migration. RustPrint first converts the source repository into architecture-aware documentation and treats it as a migration blueprint capturing module structure, data flow, APIs, and design rationale. Coding agents then use this blueprint to plan crates, implement modules, check compilability, reduce unsafe code, and iteratively refine the translated repository. RustPrint next compares documentation from the Rust output against the source documentation and uses mismatches as repair signals. It also translates and runs source test suites so runtime failures can guide targeted fixes. Experiments on eight real-world C repositories ranging from 11K to 84K LoC show that RustPrint compiles every target under both an open-weight (Kimi-K2-Instruct) and a closed-weight (GPT-5.4) backbone, while prior LLM-based translators (Self-Repair, EvoC2Rust) fail repository-wide. With the open-weight Kimi-K2-Instruct backbone, RustPrint exceeds an agentic Claude Code baseline on feature preservation (93.26% vs. 52.52%) and on cross-evaluation test pass rate (95.17% vs. 79.85%). These results suggest that documentation-guided coordination is a useful direction for scalable codebase migration.