Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

7-2024

Abstract

GitHub's Copilot for Pull Requests (PRs) is a promising service aiming to automate various developer tasks related to PRs, such as generating summaries of changes or providing complete walkthroughs with links to the relevant code. As this innovative technology gains traction in the Open Source Software (OSS) community, it is crucial to examine its early adoption and its impact on the development process. Additionally, it offers a unique opportunity to observe how developers respond when they disagree with the generated content. In our study, we employ a mixed-methods approach, blending quantitative analysis with qualitative insights, to examine 18,256 PRs in which parts of the descriptions were crafted by generative AI. Our findings indicate that: (1) Copilot for PRs, though in its infancy, is seeing a marked uptick in adoption. (2) PRs enhanced by Copilot for PRs require less review time and have a higher likelihood of being merged. (3) Developers using Copilot for PRs often complement the automated descriptions with their manual input. These results offer valuable insights into the growing integration of generative AI in software development.

Keywords

Pull Requests, Generative AI, Copilot, GitHub

Discipline

Artificial Intelligence and Robotics | Software Engineering

Research Areas

Software and Cyber-Physical Systems

Areas of Excellence

Digital transformation

Publication

Proceedings of the ACM on Software Engineering

Volume

1

Issue

FSE

First Page

1043

Last Page

1065

Identifier

10.1145/3643773

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1145/3643773

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