Araştırma Makalesi

A CONTRACT-DRIVEN AUTOMATED UNIT TEST MAINTENANCE APPROACH WITH GENERATIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR BACKEND SOFTWARE PROJECTS

Cilt: 4 Sayı: 2 31 Aralık 2025
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A CONTRACT-DRIVEN AUTOMATED UNIT TEST MAINTENANCE APPROACH WITH GENERATIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR BACKEND SOFTWARE PROJECTS

Abstract

Modern backend systems frequently undergo changes in function contracts and API surfaces, which can quickly render unit tests outdated, brittle, or unusable. Most existing tools—whether based on classical test generation or large language models (LLMs)—focus on initial test creation, leaving the ongoing maintenance of existing test suites largely manual and error-prone. This paper presents a contract-driven, AI-assisted framework for unit test maintenance in TypeScript backend projects. The framework detects function-level contract changes and adapts related Jest tests through small, validated edits synthesized by an LLM, without creating new tests or performing broad refactorings. We evaluate the approach on 28 contract-change instances across four open-source projects. The results indicate that contract-aware, LLM-based test maintenance can act as a practical self-healing mechanism when contract changes are visible in the test surface, while its effectiveness remains strongly shaped by project architecture and test-suite design.

Keywords

Etik Beyan

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Kaynakça

  1. 1. Ricca, F., Marchetto, A., Stocco, A., "AI-based Test Automation: A Grey Literature Analysis", 14th IEEE Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation Workshops (ICSTW), Online, pp. 263-270, April 12-16, 2021.
  2. 2. DeMillo, R.A., Offutt, A.J., "Constraint-Based Automatic Test Data Generation", IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 17(9), pp. 900-910, 1991.
  3. 3. Fraser, G., Arcuri, A., "EvoSuite: automatic test suite generation for object-oriented software", ESEC/FSE 2011, Szeged, Hungary, pp. 416-419, September 5-9, 2011.
  4. 4. Broide, L., Stern, R., "EvoGPT: Enhancing Test Suite Robustness via LLM-Based Generation and Genetic Optimization", arXiv.org, https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.12424, Published on May 20, 2025, Accessed on October 2, 2025.
  5. 5. Pacheco, C., Lahiri, S.K., Ernst, M.D., Ball, T., "Feedback-Directed Random Test Generation", 29th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE'07), Minneapolis, MN, USA, pp. 75-84, May 23-25, 2007.
  6. 6. Lukasczyk, S., Fraser, G., "Pynguin: Automated unit test generation for python", Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE 44th International Conference on Software Engineering: Companion Proceedings, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, pp. 168-172, May 22-27, 2022.
  7. 7. Schäfer, M., Nadi, S., Eghbali, A., Tip, F., "An Empirical Evaluation of Using Large Language Models for Automated Unit Test Generation", IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 50(1), pp. 85-105, 2024.
  8. 8. Yang, L., Yang, C., Gao, S., Wang, W., Wang, B., Zhu, Q., et al., "On the evaluation of large language models in unit test generation", Proceedings of the 39th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering, Sacramento, CA, USA, pp. 1607-1619, October 27 - November 1, 2024.

Ayrıntılar

Birincil Dil

İngilizce

Konular

Yapay Zeka (Diğer) , Yazılım Testi, Doğrulama ve Validasyon

Bölüm

Araştırma Makalesi

Yayımlanma Tarihi

31 Aralık 2025

Gönderilme Tarihi

17 Kasım 2025

Kabul Tarihi

31 Aralık 2025

Yayımlandığı Sayı

Yıl 2025 Cilt: 4 Sayı: 2

Kaynak Göster

IEEE
[1]F. S. Akıncı ve T. Tuğlular, “A CONTRACT-DRIVEN AUTOMATED UNIT TEST MAINTENANCE APPROACH WITH GENERATIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR BACKEND SOFTWARE PROJECTS”, JOSS, c. 4, sy 2, ss. 74–97, Ara. 2025, [çevrimiçi]. Erişim adresi: https://izlik.org/JA82NX92HA