The Secret Life of Bots in Pull Requests: An Empirical Study based on Apache Projects
Bots are increasingly used in software development for automation and collaboration, particularly in open-source communities like Apache. However, their role in Pull Request (PR) processing is not well understood. This study analyzed 128 Apache Foundation projects with active GitHub repositories, examining 16,989 PRs and 436,057 atomic activities. We identified 29 Bot accounts and 22,208 Bot activities through semi-automated methods. Our analysis addresses four key questions about Bot adoption, usage, behavior, and interaction with developers in PRs. Bots were adopted in 30% of Apache projects, primarily for Build Management, PR Management, and Quality Checking. While commenting is the most common activity (77.1%), most comments (76%) remain technical rather than conversational. Our study highlights the current state of Bot use in PRs and identifies areas for improved automation and intelligence in Bot design.
Sun 27 AprDisplayed time zone: Eastern Time (US & Canada) change
11:00 - 12:30 | Session 1: Bots in Open Source and Development PracticesBotSE at 213 Chair(s): Ahmad Abdellatif University of Calgary Ahmad Abdellatif | ||
11:00 18mTalk | A Bot Identification Model and Tool Based on GitHub Activity Sequences BotSE Natarajan Chidambaram University of Mons, Alexandre Decan University of Mons; F.R.S.-FNRS, Tom Mens University of Mons | ||
11:18 18mTalk | The Secret Life of Bots in Pull Requests: An Empirical Study based on Apache Projects BotSE Chenhao Wei Stevens Institute of Technology, Lu Xiao Stevens Institute of Technology, Yutong Zhao University of Central Missouri, Ting Liao Stevens Institute of Technology | ||
11:36 18mTalk | Observing bots in the wild: A quantitative analysis of a large open source ecosystem BotSE | ||
11:54 18mTalk | GZoltarAction: A Fault Localization Bot for GitHub Repositories BotSE Hugo Paiva Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, Portugal, José Campos Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, Portugal, Rui Abreu Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, Portugal | ||
12:12 18mTalk | Opportunities and Challenges of Software Engineering Bots: A Forward-Looking Analysis BotSE Glaucia Melo Toronto Metropolitan University |