Towards Conversational Development Environments: Using Theory-of-Mind and Multi-Agent Architectures for Requirements Refinement

TL;DR

This paper presents AlignMind, a multi-agent system leveraging Theory-of-Mind capabilities in foundation models to improve stakeholder requirements refinement in software development, demonstrating accurate requirement capture across diverse cases.

Contribution

Introduces AlignMind, a novel FM-powered multi-agent system with Theory-of-Mind, enhancing requirements refinement by considering stakeholder mental states.

Findings

Accurately captures stakeholder requirements in 150 diverse cases.

Translates requirements into specifications and actionable workflows.

Shows potential for significant improvements in software development process.

Abstract

Foundation Models (FMs) have shown remarkable capabilities in various natural language tasks. However, their ability to accurately capture stakeholder requirements remains a significant challenge for using FMs for software development. This paper introduces a novel approach that leverages an FM-powered multi-agent system called AlignMind to address this issue. By having a cognitive architecture that enhances FMs with Theory-of-Mind capabilities, our approach considers the mental states and perspectives of software makers. This allows our solution to iteratively clarify the beliefs, desires, and intentions of stakeholders, translating these into a set of refined requirements and a corresponding actionable natural language workflow in the often-overlooked requirements refinement phase of software engineering, which is crucial after initial elicitation. Through a multifaceted evaluation covering 150 diverse use cases, we demonstrate that our approach can accurately capture the intents and requirements of stakeholders, articulating them as both specifications and a step-by-step plan of action. Our findings suggest that the potential for significant improvements in the software development process justifies these investments. Our work lays the groundwork for future innovation in building intent-first development environments, where software makers can seamlessly collaborate with AIs to create software that truly meets their needs.