Debugging exercises are often assessed from final code and test outcomes, yet these artifacts hide how students reproduced failures, formed hypotheses, inspected evidence, edited code, and verified fixes. We present DebugTracker, a Visual Studio Code extension that records lightweight debugging-process evidence for classroom tasks. DebugTracker separates uncoached Evaluation Mode traces from coached Training Mode traces, stores append-only JSONL events, and exports timeline and Markdown reports for human review. The prototype records test commands, editor and debugger metadata, student checkpoints, source snapshots, optional image evidence, human labels, and optional AI-assisted practice feedback. DebugTracker is largely language-agnostic: it captures process evidence through standard VS Code mechanisms rather than language-specific tooling, although debugger evidence depends on the relevant VS Code language extension. We validate the prototype with debugging tasks in Python, TypeScript, and Java, 16 automated checks, and an 11-case manual trial matrix spanning packaged VSIX installation and three operating systems.
Jiatong Liu, Xuesong Yao, Zehua Zhang et al.· 0 citations
Reducing bug-triggering programs to their minimal essential form is a fundamental task in debugging language processors such as compilers and interpreters. Existing reduction techniques are limited by their reliance on predefined, syntax-driven transformations that lack semantic understanding of the target program, and by their inability to learn from past reduction experiences. We present a new approach that recasts program reduction as an autonomous reasoning task powered by agentic Large Language Models (LLMs). Instead of applying fixed transformation rules, our method enables an LLM to analyze program semantics, formulate reduction hypotheses, and iteratively refine its approach based on execution outcomes. Successful reduction experiences are further distilled into reusable strategies, allowing the system to continuously improve over time. We realize this approach in PROJ, a framework built around two collaborative components: a reducer agent that performs semantic-aware, case-specific program reduction, and a reflector agent that extracts and accumulates transferable reduction knowledge. Extensive experiments on 90 benchmarks spanning three programming languages show that PROJ consistently produces smaller reduced programs than all existing state-of-the-art reducers while maintaining high efficiency.
Xintong Zhou, Hongxu Xu, Chun-Feng Liao et al.· 0 citations