TY - GEN
T1 - The Secret Life of Bots in Pull Requests
T2 - 6th IEEE/ACM International Workshop on Bots in Software Engineering, BotSE 2025
AU - Wei, Chenhao
AU - Xiao, Lu
AU - Liao, Ting
AU - Zhao, Yutong
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 IEEE.
PY - 2025
Y1 - 2025
N2 - Bots are increasingly used in software development for automation and collaboration, particularly in open-source communities like Apache. However, their role in Pull Request (PR) processing is not well understood. This study analyzed 128 Apache Foundation projects with active GitHub repositories, examining 16,989 PRs and 436,057 atomic activities. We identified 29 Bot accounts and 22,208 Bot activities through semi-automated methods. Our analysis addresses four key questions about Bot adoption, usage, behavior, and interaction with developers in PRs. Bots were adopted in 30% of Apache projects, primarily for Build Management, PR Management, and Quality Checking. While commenting is the most common activity (77.1%), most comments (76%) remain technical rather than conversational. Our study highlights the current state of Bot use in PRs and identifies areas for improved automation and intelligence in Bot design.
AB - Bots are increasingly used in software development for automation and collaboration, particularly in open-source communities like Apache. However, their role in Pull Request (PR) processing is not well understood. This study analyzed 128 Apache Foundation projects with active GitHub repositories, examining 16,989 PRs and 436,057 atomic activities. We identified 29 Bot accounts and 22,208 Bot activities through semi-automated methods. Our analysis addresses four key questions about Bot adoption, usage, behavior, and interaction with developers in PRs. Bots were adopted in 30% of Apache projects, primarily for Build Management, PR Management, and Quality Checking. While commenting is the most common activity (77.1%), most comments (76%) remain technical rather than conversational. Our study highlights the current state of Bot use in PRs and identifies areas for improved automation and intelligence in Bot design.
KW - Open-Source Software
KW - pull request
KW - software bots
KW - software engineering
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105010584627
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105010584627#tab=citedBy
U2 - 10.1109/BotSE67031.2025.00015
DO - 10.1109/BotSE67031.2025.00015
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:105010584627
T3 - Proceedings - 2025 IEEE/ACM International Workshop on Bots in Software Engineering, BotSE 2025
SP - 33
EP - 37
BT - Proceedings - 2025 IEEE/ACM International Workshop on Bots in Software Engineering, BotSE 2025
Y2 - 27 April 2025
ER -