A Viable Paradigm of Software Automation: Iterative End-to-End Automated Software Development

TL;DR

This paper proposes AutoSW, an iterative end-to-end automated software development paradigm where AI systems collaborate with humans throughout the development lifecycle, translating natural language into executable software.

Contribution

It introduces a novel paradigm for full-stack automated software development involving AI as a central actor in an analyze-plan-implement-deliver cycle.

Findings

AutoSW successfully delivers executable software in initial tests

The paradigm demonstrates feasibility for end-to-end automation

AI-human collaboration enhances software development process

Abstract

Software development automation is a long-term goal in software engineering. With the development of artificial intelligence (AI), more and more researchers are exploring approaches to software automation. They view AI systems as tools or assistants in software development, still requiring significant human involvement. Another initiative is ``vibe coding'', where AI systems write and repeatedly revise most (or even all) of the code. We foresee these two development paths will converge towards the same destination: AI systems participate in throughout the software development lifecycle, expanding boundaries of full-stack software development. In this paper, we present a vision of an iterative end-to-end automated software development paradigm AutoSW. It operates in an analyze-plan-implement-deliver loop, where AI systems as human partners become first-class actors, translating human intentions expressed in natural language into executable software. We explore a lightweight prototype across the paradigm and initially execute various representative cases. The results indicate that AutoSW can successfully deliver executable software, providing a feasible direction for truly end-to-end automated software development.