SWE-agent: Agent-Computer Interfaces Enable Automated Software Engineering

Abstract: Software engineering is a challenging task requiring proficiency in both code generation and interacting with computers. In this paper, we introduce SWE-agent, an autonomous system that uses a language model to interact with a computer to solve software engineering tasks. We show that a custom-built agent-computer interface (ACI) greatly enhances the ability of an agent to create and edit code files, navigate entire repositories and execute programs. On SWE-bench, SWE-agent is able to solve 12.5% of issues, compared to the previous best of 3.8% achieved with retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). We explore how ACI design impacts an agent's behavior and performance, and provide insights on effective design.