ICSME 2026
Mon 14 - Fri 18 September 2026 Benevento, Italy

This program is tentative and subject to change.

Upgrading dependencies in software projects is a complex multi-step process that requires developers to assess the upgrade decision, understand the changes and their impact, and implement the upgrade and validate it. Although numerous automated approaches have been proposed to support developers, several challenges remain underexplored. Recently, Large Language Models (LLMs) and Agentic AI have pushed the boundaries of automation even further. However, even cutting-edge models have significant limitations, such as hallucinations and context constraints, which increase complexity when applied to real-world systems. These challenges highlight the need for further research to understand both the opportunities and challenges of the AI-based development paradigm. Framed within the scope of a research project (anonymized for review), this vision paper presents a human-centric agentic architecture for end-to-end dependency upgrades where specialized LLM-based agents support different upgrade tasks. We also outline an initial evaluation plan to assess the proposed architecture across dimensions beyond the overall accuracy of the upgrade process. Although the approach warrants further investigation, it is a first step toward designing, validating, and deploying agentic architectures for this use case in real industrial contexts.

This program is tentative and subject to change.

Fri 18 Sep

Displayed time zone: Amsterdam, Berlin, Bern, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna change

11:00 - 12:30
Session 19 - People + Copilots: The New Development DuoResearch Papers Track / Visions and Emerging Results Track / Tool Demonstration and Data Showcase Track / Industry Track at Auditorium
Chair(s): Alexander Serebrenik Eindhoven University of Technology, Esteban Parra Rodriguez Belmont University

Theme: Human Factors & Software Teams

11:00
20m
Paper
No Two Developers Think Alike: How Problem-Solving Styles and Experience Shape Needs in Conversational Interaction with Copilot
Research Papers Track
Jonan Richards Radboud University, Bruno Alves de Oliveira Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná, Iury Oliveira Microsoft, Igor Wiese Federal University of Technology, Mairieli Wessel Radboud University
Pre-print
11:20
20m
Paper
Detecting Error Diagnostic Defects in C Compiler via Invalid Program Mutation
Research Papers Track
Yuxiao Peng Southeast University, Bixin Li Southeast University, Zhihao Xu Monash University and Southeast University, Lulu Wang Southeast University, Li Liao Southeast University, Ying Zhou Southeast University
Pre-print
11:40
10m
Short-paper
Agent based Deep-Code Inspection for Telecom
Industry Track
Axel Wester Ericsson, Timo Simanainen Ericsson, Mukesh Thakur Ericsson, Miika Komu Ericsson, Su Pyae Sone Ericsson
11:50
10m
Short-paper
TARS: A Theory-of-Mind Agent for Personalized In-IDE Code Comprehension
Tool Demonstration and Data Showcase Track
Leopoldo Todisco University of Salerno, Antonio Della Porta University of Salerno, Stefano Lambiase Department of Computer Science, Aalborg University, Denmark, Fabio Palomba University of Salerno
Pre-print
12:00
10m
Short-paper
Towards Accurate Classification of License Terms in Open Source SoftwareRemote Talk
Visions and Emerging Results Track
Guangjie Li National Innovation Institute of Defense Technology, Yan He National Innovation Institute of Defense Technology, Yonghui Wu National Innovation Institute of Defense Technology, Beijing 100071, China, Changqin Li National Innovation Institute of Defense Technology, Beijing 100071, China
12:10
10m
Short-paper
Human-Centric Agentic AI for End-to-End Dependency Upgrades
Visions and Emerging Results Track
Ouijdane Guiza Pro2Future GmbH, Claudio Di Sipio Johannes Kepler University Linz, Lukas Freiseisen Johannes Kepler University, Wesley K.G. Assunção North Carolina State University, Alexander Egyed Johannes Kepler University Linz, Paul Grünbacher Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria, Manuela Mitterndorfer ITPRO - Consulting & Software GmbH
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