Investigating the Interplay between Developers and Automation

Abstract: Continuous practices are a staple of the modern software development workflow. Automation, in particular, is widely adopted due to its benefits related to quality and productivity. However, automation, similarly to all other aspects of the software development workflow, interacts with humans (in this case developers). While some work has investigated the impact of automation on developers, it is not clear to what extent context and process influence that impact. We present our ADEPT theory of developers and automation, in an attempt to bridge this gap and identify the possible ways context, process, and other factors may influence how developers perceive, interpret, and interact with automation.