Toward Agentic Software Engineering Beyond Code: Framing Vision, Values, and Vocabulary

Technical Deep Dive: Toward Agentic Software Engineering Beyond Code

Overview

The paper proposes a "whole of process" vision for Agentic Software Engineering (ASE), expanding the scope beyond just code-related activities. This vision aims to enable ASE as a process-level paradigm shift in software engineering (SE), rather than just a coding accelerator.

The key ideas are:

• Extend the scope of ASE beyond coding to encompass the full software engineering lifecycle, including requirements, design, operations, and other socio-technical concerns.
• Propose a set of "CRAFT" values and principles to guide the development of ASE, covering comprehensiveness, responsibility, adaptability, foundational work, and translational research.
• Provide guidance on developing well-defined terminology and vocabulary for the emerging ASE discipline.

Context

• Software engineering has evolved over decades, with various process models and frameworks proposed, from Waterfall to Agile.
• The advent of agentic AI (e.g. SWE-agent, Jules, Codex, Devin) is now driving visions of "agentic software engineering" focused on code-related activities.
• However, early evidence suggests the need to expand the scope of ASE beyond just coding, to address wider socio-technical concerns across the software engineering lifecycle.

Proposed Vision

The paper proposes a "whole of process" vision for ASE, covering the following areas:

• Agentic Ethical Alignment: Ensuring alignment with safe AI laws and regulations.
• Agentic Requirements Engineering: Handling customer, user, and ethical requirements.
• Agentic Design: Architecture, UX, and design for human benefit.
• Agentic Development: Code generation, testing, reviewing, repairing, etc.
• Agentic Operations: Deployment, maintenance, and DevOps.

This vision sees human and agent actors collaborating across these areas, with varying levels of AI agency under human control.

Key Principles

The paper proposes a set of "CRAFT" principles to guide ASE:

• Comprehensive: Take a "whole of process" approach, and consider human, agentic, and socio-technical aspects.
• Responsible: Apply ethics-by-design and ensure sustainability.
• Adaptive: Maintain industrial and socio-technical relevance by adapting to new AI models and paradigms.
• Foundational: Develop foundational knowledge and solutions beyond just coding.
• Translational: Build awareness, education, and actionable guidelines to enable research translation into practice.

Vocabulary Guidance

The paper emphasizes the importance of developing well-defined terminology and vocabulary for the emerging ASE discipline, highlighting considerations around:

• Relevance: Fit for purpose and domain context.
• Coverage: Conceptual completeness and accuracy.
• Acceptance: Recognition and adoption by the community.
• Consistency: Uniformity of use, stability, and adaptability.
• Philosophical alignment: Reflexivity and awareness of underlying assumptions, power dynamics, and fairness.

Conclusion

The paper calls for a deliberate and desirable paradigm shift in software engineering, driven by the emerging field of agentic software engineering. It provides a holistic vision, guiding principles, and vocabulary recommendations to steer the community towards establishing the core foundations of ASE.

Sources:

• Toward Agentic Software Engineering Beyond Code: Framing Vision, Values, and Vocabulary