mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

MuMuTestUp: Mutation-based Multi-Agent Test Case Update

arXiv 2605.19265 ↗First posted 19 May 2026cs.SEcited by 0

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

Abstract (arXiv)

Modern software systems evolve rapidly under CI/CD practices, where tests are critical for quality. However, substantial code changes often render existing test cases obsolete, causing pipeline disruptions, reduced productivity, and compromised quality. Recent automatic test update approaches leverage LLMs to refine test cases via execution feedback and exact-matching context retrieval, prioritizing executability and line coverage but suffering three limitations: (1) neglecting test assertion adequacy, weakening fault detection; (2) relying on coarse line coverage instead of specific uncovered lines/branches; (3) using exact-matching retrieval, which fails for LLM hallucinated queries. To address these, we propose MuMuTestUp, a mutation-guided multi-agent framework with three specialized agents: Mutation Analysis (strengthens assertions via surviving mutants), Coverage Analysis (generates targeted repair instructions for uncovered lines/branches), and Semantic Retrieval (handles hallucinations via semantic-similarity search). We also construct PRBENCH, a 571-sample pull-request-level dataset from 10 open-source Java projects (validated for cross-commit update scenarios). Evaluations against state-of-the-art baselines use both open-source (Deepseek-V3.2) and closed-source (GPT-4.1) LLMs.

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 44 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 19 May 2026.

Builds on

12 of 44 references.

Closest ancestors · 1

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2024SWE-agent: Agent-Computer Interfaces Enable Automated Software Engineering6 May

Other references · 11

  1. 2024Same Task, More Tokens: the Impact of Input Length on the Reasoning Performance of Large Language Modelscited by 150
  2. 2023Effective Test Generation Using Pre-trained Large Language Models and Mutation Testingcited by 51
  3. 2022Pynguin: Automated Unit Test Generation for Pythoncited by 49
  4. 2024HITS: High-coverage LLM-based Unit Test Generation via Method Slicingcited by 37
  5. 2025Mutation-Guided LLM-based Test Generation at Metacited by 23
  6. 2024Exploring the Capabilities of LLMs for Code Change Related Taskscited by 18
  7. 2025Effects of Prompt Length on Domain-specific Tasks for Large Language Modelscited by 10
  8. 2025An Empirical Study on Prompt Compression for Large Language Modelscited by 8
  9. 2024REACCEPT: Automated Co-evolution of Production and Test Code Based on Dynamic Validation and Large Language Modelscited by 5
  10. 2024Fix the Tests: Augmenting LLMs to Repair Test Cases with Static Collector and Neural Rerankercited by 4
  11. 2025Unit Test Update through LLM-Driven Context Collection and Error-Type-Aware Refinementcited by 3

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  1. 2026VibeCheck: Assessing the Quality of LLM-Generated Unit Tests: A Multi-agent Empirical Study across Heterogeneous Repositories
  2. 2026Breaking, Stale, or Missing? Benchmarking Coding Agents on Project-Level Test Evolution
  3. 2024SWT-Bench: Testing and Validating Real-World Bug-Fixes with Code Agents
  4. 2026EviACT: An Evidence-to-Action Framework for Agentic Program Repair
  5. 2026SWE-Mutation: Can LLMs Generate Reliable Test Suites in Software Engineering?
  6. 2025TestForge: Feedback-Driven, Agentic Test Suite Generation
  7. 2026TAM-Eval: Evaluating LLMs for Automated Unit Test Maintenance
  8. 2025Agentic Program Repair from Test Failures at Scale: A Neuro-symbolic approach with static analysis and test execution feedback