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arXiv · 2606.31206

FeatX: Editing Software by Editing Features for Repository-Level Code Evolution

Xutian Li·Yifeng Zhu·Xianlin Zhao·Yanzhen Zou·Lu Zhang·Bing Xie
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Abstract

Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly used for software evolution, yet most interaction paradigms remain code-centric and require manual context management and prompt iteration. We present FeatX, a feature-oriented tool for editing software by editing features. Given an existing repository, FeatX extracts a hierarchical epic-feature structure with explicit feature-to-code mappings, then invokes a three-stage Evolution Agent to translate feature edits into code patches. The workflow is exposed through four coordinated panels. Across a controlled user study and replay experiments on 38 real-world feature-editing commits, FeatX significantly reduces cognitive load and improves usability compared with vanilla ChatGPT. It also achieves a 42.6\% relative improvement in function-level modification localization F1 over strong LLM baselines, at substantially lower cost (\$0.07 in total). The tool and collected dataset are available at https://github.com/a496263365/FeatX/tree/demo, with a demonstration video at https://youtu.be/OZqKZ4Ii-yM.

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Xutian Li, Yifeng Zhu, Xianlin Zhao, Yanzhen Zou, Lu Zhang, Bing Xie. 2026-06-30. FeatX: Editing Software by Editing Features for Repository-Level Code Evolution. https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.31206

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