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abstract indexed · arXiv 2610.21073 · updated 2026-10-18

Skip the Compressor: Coding Agents Fix More Issues When They Pick Whole Files

First page of Skip the Compressor: Coding Agents Fix More Issues When They Pick Whole Files
From the original paper · arXiv 2610.21073Page 1. Select the image to read the PDF.

The method replaces chunk-level retrieval and prompt compression with a selector that spends the entire context budget on whole files shown verbatim, requiring no compression model or training. Its cost is that selecting files rather than tokens is coarser-grained, so budget is wasted on irrelevant portions of included files and the approach presumes edited files fit within the budget. It can fail when an issue requires edits spread across more files than the budget admits, when individual files exceed the context window, or when the selector picks the wrong files, since there is no retrieval fallback.

For solo builders

A possible application for this research area. Paper-specific feasibility still needs a full-paper review.

Your coding assistant makes changes that still need substantial repair before merging.

What you would change

Try the technique on held-out issues from a repository with reliable tests.

Try the idea on your product

A proposed first test. Set your budget and success criteria before running it.

Try the technique on held-out issues from a repository with reliable tests.

Compare against

The same coding agent, repository snapshot, tools, and token budget.

  1. Locate the paper's implementation and check its license, model support, data needs, and hardware requirements. Stop here if you cannot obtain the required artifacts.
  2. Save a small set of representative product tasks and expected outcomes. Keep evaluation tasks out of any training or tuning, and choose quality and cost limits before running.
  3. Run the baseline and the proposed change on identical inputs. Keep other settings fixed and repeat paired runs to expose variation.
  4. Save per-task outputs, failures, timings, and all usage costs. Review regressions before expanding the test.

What to measure

Correct patches, regression failures, human repair time, and total cost per accepted change.

When to keep it

Keep the change only if it meets your preselected quality and latency limits and improves the metric you care about after setup and operating costs. Otherwise retain the baseline. This is an exploration plan, not a validated recommendation.

Download test plan ↓

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minimum test setup
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published evidence setup
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source-linked claims
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exposure checks
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Why it was shortlisted

The technical change, research area, and reason it entered the archive.

recommendation
adopt
research area
coding agents
technical change
Whole-file verbatim selection for coding agents (CQ2-CARE)
published
2026-10-15

File-level verbatim selection is implementable with a single API model and no trained components, and the paper reports consistent gains over both compressors and retrievers at equal token budget, which directly matches constrained-infrastructure production constraints.

About the technical core

Equations have not been fetched yet.

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Inspect the original paper

Claims and evidence

A claim is source-linked only when the PDF page and matching excerpt are available.

  1. claim 01Paperraft inference
    Read the brief interpretation

    The method replaces chunk-level retrieval and prompt compression with a selector that spends the entire context budget on whole files shown verbatim, requiring no compression model or training. Its cost is that selecting files rather than tokens is coarser-grained, so budget is wasted on irrelevant portions of included files and the approach presumes edited files fit within the budget. It can fail when an issue requires edits spread across more files than the budget admits, when individual files exceed the context window, or when the selector picks the wrong files, since there is no retrieval fallback.

    This is a Paperraft inference. It is not pinned to a verified PDF passage.

    Inspect the source
  2. claim 02Paperraft inference

    On 300 SWE-rebench issues at an equal per-issue token budget, CQ2-CARE resolves 43.7% (GPT-5.6) and 46.7% (Claude Opus 5) of issues, 6.3 points above the best prompt compressor and 9.3-12.7 points above the best retriever; it also exceeds trained methods SweRank by 0.7-1.7 points and SWE-Pruner by 2.0-7.3 points.

    This is a Paperraft inference. It is not pinned to a verified PDF passage.

    Inspect the source

Exposure map

Author findings, Paperraft interpretations, and the next check. Missing analysis never counts as evidence of safety.

quality

Still unknown

Which tasks improve, and which regress against the baseline?

compute and memory

Still unknown

What memory, hardware, and total compute does the complete method require?

latency

Still unknown

Are startup time, typical response time, and slow requests measured separately?

operations

Still unknown

What must be monitored, maintained, and rolled back?

software compatibility

Still unknown

Does the implementation support your model, runtime, and hardware?

security

Still unknown

What new data access, permissions, or trust boundaries does it introduce?

data and training

Still unknown

What data preparation or training is required, and is it included in the cost?

reproducibility

Still unknown

Are code, versions, inputs, and evaluation scripts available?

Continue the investigation

A reading guide for coding agents.

Editorial prompts, not findings from this paper or a validated test plan. Detailed analysis is still pending for the topics below.

What to inspect

Does the evaluation use held-out repositories and tests the agent cannot modify?

Plan a fair comparison

Can you run both agents against the same repository snapshot, tool permissions, and time budget?

Questions for adoption

How many tasks pass independent tests, and what is the cost per accepted change?

Read the paper with these questions

Inside the paper

Preview the first 3 pages of the original PDF. Click the stack to turn the page.

The downloadable skill includes SKILL.md and evidence.json, with recorded findings and unanswered checks. TRY-IT.md adds a product test plan and a blank results sheet.

A reading aid for your agent. Findings still need validation.

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Provisional research brief updated 2026-10-18. Paperraft has not reproduced this experiment.

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arXiv 2610.21073

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