Software Model Evolution with Large Language Models: Experiments on Simulated, Public, and Industrial Datasets

• Published in: Proceedings / International Conference on Software Engineering pp. 950 - 962
• Main Authors: Tinnes, Christof, Welter, Alisa, Apel, Sven
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 26.04.2025
• Subjects: ai4se; Biological system modeling; copilots; Data models; generative ai; intelligent modeling assistant; Large language models; model completion; model-driven engineering; Real-time systems; Retrieval augmented generation; Semantics; Software; Software product lines; Software systems; Source coding
• ISSN: 1558-1225
• DOI: 10.1109/ICSE55347.2025.00112

Modeling structure and behavior of software systems plays a crucial role in the industrial practice of software engineering. As with other software engineering artifacts, software models are subject to evolution. Supporting modelers in evolving software models with recommendations for model completions is still an open problem, though. In this paper, we explore the potential of large language models for this task. In particular, we propose an approach, RAMC, leveraging large language models, model histories, and retrieval-augmented generation for model completion. Through experiments on three datasets, including an industrial application, one public open-source community dataset, and one controlled collection of simulated model repositories, we evaluate the potential of large language models for model completion with RAMC. We found that large language models are indeed a promising technology for supporting software model evolution (62.30% semantically correct completions on real-world industrial data and up to 86.19% type-correct completions). The general inference capabilities of large language models are particularly useful when dealing with concepts for which there are few, noisy, or no examples at all.