MSR 2026
Mon 13 - Tue 14 April 2026 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
co-located with ICSE 2026

This program is tentative and subject to change.

Tue 14 Apr 2026 11:40 - 11:50 at Oceania V - Session 1-A: AI & Autonomous Agents

Users demand fast, seamless webpage experiences, yet developers often struggle to meet these expectations within tight constraints. Performance optimization, while critical, is a time-consuming and often manual process. One of the most complex tasks in this domain is modifying the Document Object Model (DOM), which is why this study focuses on it. Recent advances in Large Language Models (LLMs) offer a promising avenue to automate this complex task, potentially transforming how developers address web performance issues. This study evaluates the effectiveness of nine state-of-the-art LLMs for automated web performance issue resolution. For this purpose, we first extracted the DOM trees of 15 popular webpages (e.g., Facebook), and then we used Lighthouse to retrieve their performance audit reports. Subsequently, we passed the extracted DOM trees and corresponding audits to each model for resolution. Our study considers 7 unique audit categories, revealing that LLMs universally excel at SEO & Accessibility issues. However, their efficacy in performance-critical DOM manipulations is mixed. While high-performing models like GPT-4.1 delivered significant reductions in areas like \textit{Initial Load}, \textit{Interactivity}, and \textit{Network Optimization} (e.g., 46.52% to 48.68% audit incidence reductions), others, such as GPT-4o-mini, notably underperformed, consistently. A further analysis of these modifications showed a predominant additive strategy and frequent positional changes, alongside regressions particularly impacting \textit{Visual Stability}. Our findings define safe areas for automation (e.g., SEO and accessibility) and reveal the limits of DOM-level resolution, underscoring the need for hybrid, validated workflows. However, it critically underscores the need for careful model selection, understanding their specific modification patterns, and robust human oversight to ensure reliable web performance improvements.

This program is tentative and subject to change.

Tue 14 Apr

Displayed time zone: Brasilia, Distrito Federal, Brazil change

11:00 - 12:30
Session 1-A: AI & Autonomous AgentsTechnical Papers / MSR Program at Oceania V
11:00
10m
Talk
Speed at the Cost of Quality: How Cursor AI Increases Short-Term Velocity and Long-Term Complexity in Open-Source Projects
Technical Papers
Hao He Carnegie Mellon University, Courtney Miller Carnegie Mellon University, Shyam Agarwal Carnegie Mellon University, Christian Kästner Carnegie Mellon University, Bogdan Vasilescu Carnegie Mellon University
Pre-print
11:10
10m
Talk
LLM-Based Detection of Tangled Code Changes for Higher-Quality Method-Level Bug Datasets
Technical Papers
Md Nahidul Islam Opu University of Manitoba, Shaowei Wang University of Manitoba, Shaiful Chowdhury University of Manitoba
Pre-print
11:20
10m
Talk
Adversarial Bug Reports as a Security Risk in Language Model-Based Automated Program Repair
Technical Papers
Piotr Przymus Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland, Andreas Happe TU Wien, Jürgen Cito TU Wien
Pre-print
11:30
10m
Talk
Investigating Autonomous Agent Contributions in the Wild: Activity Patterns and Code Change over Time
Technical Papers
Răzvan Mihai Popescu Delft University of Technology, David Gros University of California, Davis, Andrei Botocan Delft University of Technology, Rahul Pandita GitHub, Inc., Prem Devanbu University of California at Davis, Maliheh Izadi Delft University of Technology
11:40
10m
Talk
Evaluating the Use of LLMs for Automated DOM-Level Resolution of Web Performance Issues
Technical Papers
Gideon Peters Concordia University, SayedHassan Khatoonabadi Concordia University, Emad Shihab Concordia University
11:50
10m
Talk
Are Coding Agents Generating Over-Mocked Tests? An Empirical Study
Technical Papers
Andre Hora UFMG, Romain Robbes CNRS, LaBRI, University of Bordeaux
Pre-print
12:00
10m
Talk
Consistent or Sensitive? Automated Code Revision Tools Against Semantics-Preserving Perturbations
Technical Papers
Shirin Pirouzkhah University of Zurich, Souhaila Serbout University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, Alberto Bacchelli IfI, University of Zurich
Pre-print
12:10
10m
Talk
Beyond the Prompt: An Empirical Study of Cursor Rules
Technical Papers
Shaokang Jiang University of California, Irvine, Daye Nam University of California Irvine
Pre-print
12:20
10m
Talk
Bridging Design and Implementation: A Study of Multi-Agent LLM Architectures for Automated Front-End Generation
Technical Papers
Caren Rizk Concordia University, SayedHassan Khatoonabadi Concordia University, Emad Shihab Concordia University