Cost-Effective Repository Exploration for Agentic Issue Localization
Quick summary
arXiv:2608.29675v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Repository exploration is a distinct and costly stage of coding-agent pipelines: before generating a patch, an agent must identify which repository files are likely to matter. We study whether this stage can be delegated to lower-cost models while retaining useful localization quality. Using our IssueLoc-Bench, we evaluate five explorer models under the same read-only interactive interface on 499 SWE-bench Verified-derived tasks and 500 tasks from 153 additional repositories. We measure early candidate discovery, top-three gold-file coverage, s
Key takeaways
- arXiv:2608.29675v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Repository exploration is a distinct and costly stage of coding-agent pipelines: before generating a patch, an agent must identify which repository files are likely to matter.
- We study whether this stage can be delegated to lower-cost models while retaining useful localization quality.
- Using our IssueLoc-Bench, we evaluate five explorer models under the same read-only interactive interface on 499 SWE-bench Verified-derived tasks and 500 tasks from 153 additional repositories.
Why it matters
The value of this work lies as much in how it was tested as in the claim itself. Sample design, baselines, uncertainty and replication help separate a laboratory result from real-world impact.
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