# To What Extent Does Agent-Generated Code Require Maintenance? An Empirical Study

> Source: <https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.06464>
> Published: 2026-10-23 18:42:32+00:00

# Computer Science > Software Engineering

  [Submitted on 7 May 2026 (

[v1](https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.06464v1)), last revised 9 May 2026 (this version, v2)]
# Title:To What Extent Does Agent-generated Code Require Maintenance? An Empirical Study

[View PDF](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2605.06464)

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Abstract:LLM-based autonomous coding agents have reshaped software development. While these agents excel at code generation, open questions persist about the long-term maintainability of AI-generated code. This study empirically investigates the maintenance extent, human involvement, and modification types of AI-generated files versus human-authored code. Using the AIDev dataset of AI-generated pull requests and GitHub, we analyzed over 1,000 files and approximately 3,200 changes from 100 popular repositories. Our findings show that: (i) AI-generated files receive less frequent maintenance than human-authored code, with updates affecting only a small fraction of file size; (ii) the most frequent modifications to AI code are feature extensions, whereas human updates focus on bug fixes, and (iii) human developers perform the large majority of this maintenance.
    

## Submission history

From: Tatsuya Shirai [
[view email](https://arxiv.org/show-email/b89856e8/2605.06464)]

**Thu, 7 May 2026 15:52:41 UTC (766 KB)**

[\[v1\]](https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.06464v1)
**[v2]** Sat, 9 May 2026 06:52:52 UTC (766 KB)

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