2026-10-05T21:32:38Z https://drops.dagstuhl.de/oai

oai:drops-oai.dagstuhl.de:28032 2026-10-05T06:44:05Z ddc:004 open_access

Software Supply Chains Are Dead: Use-Case-Oriented Regeneration Singla, Tanmay Davis, James C. Software supply chain dependency reuse code generation AI coding agents Modern software development relies on an increasingly doubtful premise: that the up-front implementation savings from adopting a dependency outweighs the maintenance costs. Two changes are reshaping the build-vs.-reuse calculus: software supply chain attacks have raised the cost of external reliance, while generative AI has lowered the cost of local implementation. In this vision paper, we discuss use-case-oriented regeneration as a new software sourcing paradigm that shifts the supply chain from external trust to local verification. We evaluate an agentic workflow that synthesizes only the specific slice of dependency functionality that a repository exercises. Our measurements across 180 repository-dependency pairs suggest that this approach is feasible: the replacements preserve 99.8% of repository-observed behavior across baseline validation checks and reduce the exported API surface by 93%. Software sourcing may evolve toward verifiable repository-specific code synthesis, especially when the required functionality is narrow, stable, and well tested. Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik Tanmay Singla and James C. Davis 2026 Is Part Of LIPIcs, Volume 394, 20th International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM 2026) InProceedings Text doc-type:ResearchArticle publishedVersion application/pdf doi:10.4230/LIPIcs.ESEM.2026.64 urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-280327 https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ESEM.2026.64 eng https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode