@inproceedings{tao-ishikawa-2026-externalizing,
title = "Externalizing Requirement-to-Repair Artifacts as Observable Traces for {LLM}-Based Program Repair",
author = "Tao, Zewen and
Ishikawa, Shin-nosuke",
editor = "Kamalloo, Ehsan and
Gontier, Nicolas and
Rozanov, Nikolai and
Hashemzadeh, Maryam and
Arora, Akhil",
booktitle = "Proceedings of the Second Workshop for {RE}search on Agent Language Models ({REALM} 2026)",
month = oct,
year = "2026",
address = "Budapest, Hungary",
publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
url = "https://aclanthology.org/2026.realm-1.30/",
pages = "451--460",
ISBN = "979-8-89176-485-9",
abstract = "Repository-level repair requires not only correct patches but also inspectable records that explain how issue requirements are translated into code changes and post-edit evidence. We contribute THEMIS, a stage-aware repair workflow that externalizes this requirement-to-repair process through semantic interpretation, a runtime requirement{--}code graph, graph-derived Developer guidance, retained repair rationale and patches, and post-edit audit records. A retrospective audit of 300 SWE-bench Lite cases demonstrates that these artifacts provide broad support for cross-stage inspection: a complete Developer rationale is available for 288 cases, and 214 cases (71.3{\%}) retain a complete audited field set connecting the selected stages. The retained records further enable systematic measurement of cross-stage correspondence: target symbols recur in 62.6{\%} of Developer rationales and in 62.8{\%} of patches, rising to 75.8{\%} when related symbols are included. In a paired 100-case comparison, the relational workflow resolves 19 cases versus 9 for the direct same-input condition, corresponding to a 10-percentage-point improvement. Together, these results show that THEMIS turns otherwise implicit requirement-to-repair transitions into observable traces, enabling systematic inspection of how repair decisions persist, align, and evolve across stages."
}<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<modsCollection xmlns="http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3">
<mods ID="tao-ishikawa-2026-externalizing">
<titleInfo>
<title>Externalizing Requirement-to-Repair Artifacts as Observable Traces for LLM-Based Program Repair</title>
</titleInfo>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Zewen</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Tao</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Shin-nosuke</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Ishikawa</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<originInfo>
<dateIssued>2026-10</dateIssued>
</originInfo>
<typeOfResource>text</typeOfResource>
<relatedItem type="host">
<titleInfo>
<title>Proceedings of the Second Workshop for REsearch on Agent Language Models (REALM 2026)</title>
</titleInfo>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Ehsan</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Kamalloo</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">editor</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Nicolas</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Gontier</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">editor</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Nikolai</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Rozanov</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">editor</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Maryam</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Hashemzadeh</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">editor</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Akhil</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Arora</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">editor</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<originInfo>
<publisher>Association for Computational Linguistics</publisher>
<place>
<placeTerm type="text">Budapest, Hungary</placeTerm>
</place>
</originInfo>
<genre authority="marcgt">conference publication</genre>
<identifier type="isbn">979-8-89176-485-9</identifier>
</relatedItem>
<abstract>Repository-level repair requires not only correct patches but also inspectable records that explain how issue requirements are translated into code changes and post-edit evidence. We contribute THEMIS, a stage-aware repair workflow that externalizes this requirement-to-repair process through semantic interpretation, a runtime requirement–code graph, graph-derived Developer guidance, retained repair rationale and patches, and post-edit audit records. A retrospective audit of 300 SWE-bench Lite cases demonstrates that these artifacts provide broad support for cross-stage inspection: a complete Developer rationale is available for 288 cases, and 214 cases (71.3%) retain a complete audited field set connecting the selected stages. The retained records further enable systematic measurement of cross-stage correspondence: target symbols recur in 62.6% of Developer rationales and in 62.8% of patches, rising to 75.8% when related symbols are included. In a paired 100-case comparison, the relational workflow resolves 19 cases versus 9 for the direct same-input condition, corresponding to a 10-percentage-point improvement. Together, these results show that THEMIS turns otherwise implicit requirement-to-repair transitions into observable traces, enabling systematic inspection of how repair decisions persist, align, and evolve across stages.</abstract>
<identifier type="citekey">tao-ishikawa-2026-externalizing</identifier>
<location>
<url>https://aclanthology.org/2026.realm-1.30/</url>
</location>
<part>
<date>2026-10</date>
<extent unit="page">
<start>451</start>
<end>460</end>
</extent>
</part>
</mods>
</modsCollection>
%0 Conference Proceedings
%T Externalizing Requirement-to-Repair Artifacts as Observable Traces for LLM-Based Program Repair
%A Tao, Zewen
%A Ishikawa, Shin-nosuke
%Y Kamalloo, Ehsan
%Y Gontier, Nicolas
%Y Rozanov, Nikolai
%Y Hashemzadeh, Maryam
%Y Arora, Akhil
%S Proceedings of the Second Workshop for REsearch on Agent Language Models (REALM 2026)
%D 2026
%8 October
%I Association for Computational Linguistics
%C Budapest, Hungary
%@ 979-8-89176-485-9
%F tao-ishikawa-2026-externalizing
%X Repository-level repair requires not only correct patches but also inspectable records that explain how issue requirements are translated into code changes and post-edit evidence. We contribute THEMIS, a stage-aware repair workflow that externalizes this requirement-to-repair process through semantic interpretation, a runtime requirement–code graph, graph-derived Developer guidance, retained repair rationale and patches, and post-edit audit records. A retrospective audit of 300 SWE-bench Lite cases demonstrates that these artifacts provide broad support for cross-stage inspection: a complete Developer rationale is available for 288 cases, and 214 cases (71.3%) retain a complete audited field set connecting the selected stages. The retained records further enable systematic measurement of cross-stage correspondence: target symbols recur in 62.6% of Developer rationales and in 62.8% of patches, rising to 75.8% when related symbols are included. In a paired 100-case comparison, the relational workflow resolves 19 cases versus 9 for the direct same-input condition, corresponding to a 10-percentage-point improvement. Together, these results show that THEMIS turns otherwise implicit requirement-to-repair transitions into observable traces, enabling systematic inspection of how repair decisions persist, align, and evolve across stages.
%U https://aclanthology.org/2026.realm-1.30/
%P 451-460
Markdown (Informal)
[Externalizing Requirement-to-Repair Artifacts as Observable Traces for LLM-Based Program Repair](https://aclanthology.org/2026.realm-1.30/) (Tao & Ishikawa, REALM 2026)
ACL