Agent Engineering
AI engineering is the application of software engineering principles and techniques to the design, development, and operation of AI systems.
— Bass, L., Lu, Q., Weber, I., & Zhu, L. (2025). Engineering AI Systems: Architecture and DevOps Essentials.
This definition of AI engineering emphasizes the integration of established software engineering practices into the development life cycle of AI systems. It recognizes that AI systems, despite their unique characteristics, can still benefit from the rigorous methodologies and best practices that have evolved in traditional software engineering.
Our AI Engineering research focuses on applying these rigorous methodologies throughout the AI/agent system lifecycle, ensuring these systems are scalable, efficient, and aligned with user needs.
Agent Architecture Design & Architecture Evaluation
- Qinghua Lu, Liming Zhu, Xiwei Xu, Zhenchang Xing, Stefan Harrer, and Jon Whittle. “Towards Responsible Generative AI: A Reference Architecture for Designing Foundation Model based Agents.” In 2024 IEEE 21st International Conference on Software Architecture Companion (ICSA-C), pp. 119-126. IEEE, 2024.
- Liu, Yue, Sin Kit Lo, Qinghua Lu, Liming Zhu, Dehai Zhao, Xiwei Xu, Stefan Harrer, and Jon Whittle. “Agent Design Pattern Catalogue: A Collection of Architectural Patterns for Foundation Model based Agents.” Journal of Systems and Software 220 (2025): 112278.
- Jingwen Zhou, Qinghua Lu, Jieshan Chen, Liming Zhu, Xiwei Xu, Zhenchang Xing, Stefan Harrer. “A Taxonomy of Architecture Options for Foundation Model-based Agents: Analysis and Decision Model.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2408.02920 (2024).
- Qinghua Lu, Liming Zhu, Xiwei Xu, Zhenchang Xing, and Jon Whittle. “Towards Responsible AI in the Era of Generative AI: A Reference Architecture for Designing Foundation Model based Systems.” IEEE Software (2024).
- Qinghua Lu, Liming Zhu, Xiwei Xu, Yue Liu, Zhenchang Xing, and Jon Whittle. “A Taxonomy of Foundation Model based Systems through the Lens of Software Architecture.” In Proceedings of the IEEE/ACM 3rd International Conference on AI Engineering-Software Engineering for AI, pp. 1-6. 2024.
- Qinghua Lu, Dehai Zhao, Yue Liu, Hao Zhang, Liming Zhu, Xiwei Xu, Angela Shi, and Tristan Tan. “Evaluating the Architecture of Large Language Model based Agents.” (2024).
- Md Shamsujjoha, Qinghua Lu, Dehai Zhao, and Liming Zhu. “Designing Multi-layered Runtime Guardrails for Foundation Model Based Agents: Swiss Cheese Model for AI Safety by Design.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2408.02205 (2024).
AgentOps
- Liming Dong, Qinghua Lu, and Liming Zhu. “A Taxonomy of AgentOps for Enabling Observability of Foundation Model based Agents.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.05285 (2024).
Agent Evaluation
- Boming Xia, Qinghua Lu, Liming Zhu, Zhenchang Xing, Dehai Zhao, and Hao Zhang. “Evaluation-Driven Development of LLM Agents: A Process Model and Reference Architecture.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.13768 (2024).
Agent Platform
- Sapper No/Low Code Agent Platform
- Yu Cheng, Jieshan Chen, Qing Huang, Zhenchang Xing, Xiwei Xu, and Qinghua Lu. “Prompt Sapper: A LLM-Empowered Production Tool for Building AI Chains.” ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (2023).
UI Agent
- PortalX for desktop – AI Chat Portal To Help Tech Adoption
- Universal Task Assistant – A Universal Smart Device Assistant
- Deceptive Pattern Detection
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UIGuard – Chen, Jieshan, Jiamou Sun, Sidong Feng, Zhenchang Xing, Qinghua Lu, Xiwei Xu, and Chunyang Chen. “Unveiling the tricks: Automated detection of dark patterns in mobile applications.” In Proceedings of the 36th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, pp. 1-20. 2023.
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AppRay – Jieshan Chen, Zhen Wang, Jiamou Sun, Wenbo Zou, Zhenchang Xing, Qinghua Lu, Qing Huang, and Xiwei Xu. “From Exploration to Revelation: Detecting Dark Patterns in Mobile Apps.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.18084 (2024). WWW 2025.
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DPGuard – Zewei Shi, Ruoxi Sun, Jieshan Chen, Jiamou Sun, Minhui Xue, Yansong Gao, Feng Liu, and Xingliang Yuan. “50 Shades of Deceptive Patterns: A Unified Taxonomy, Multimodal Detection, and Security Implications.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2501.13351 (2025).
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API Agent
- Jiamou Sun, Zhenchang Xing, Xin Xia, Qinghua Lu, Xiwei Xu, and Liming Zhu. “Aspect-level information discrepancies across heterogeneous vulnerability reports: Severity, types and detection methods.” ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology 33, no. 2 (2023): 1-38.
- Jiamou Sun, Jieshan Chen, Zhenchang Xing, Qinghua Lu, Xiwei Xu, and Liming Zhu. “Where is it? tracing the vulnerability-relevant files from vulnerability reports.” In Proceedings of the IEEE/ACM 46th International Conference on Software Engineering, pp. 1-13. 2024.
- Boming Xia, Tingting Bi, Zhenchang Xing, Qinghua Lu, and Liming Zhu. “An empirical study on software bill of materials: Where we stand and the road ahead.” In 2023 IEEE/ACM 45th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE), pp. 2630-2642. IEEE, 2023.
- Boming Xia, Dawen Zhang, Yue Liu, Qinghua Lu, Zhenchang Xing, and Liming Zhu. “Trust in software supply chains: Blockchain-enabled sbom and the aibom future.” In Proceedings of the 2024 ACM/IEEE 4th International Workshop on Engineering and Cybersecurity of Critical Systems (EnCyCriS) and 2024 IEEE/ACM Second International Workshop on Software Vulnerability, pp. 12-19. 2024.
UI Intelligence
- UI Code Generation from Textual Query – Mingyue Yuan, Jieshan Chen, Yongquan Hu, Sidong Feng, Mulong Xie, Gelareh Mohammadi, Zhenchang Xing, and Aaron Quigley. “Towards Human-AI Synergy in UI Design: Enhancing Multi-Agent Based UI Generation with Intent Clarification and Alignment.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2412.20071 (2024).
- UI Design Issue Examination and Repair – Mingyue Yuan, Jieshan Chen, Zhenchang Xing, Aaron Quigley, Yuyu Luo, Tianqi Luo, Gelareh Mohammadi, Qinghua Lu, and Liming Zhu. “DesignRepair: Dual-Stream Design Guideline-Aware Frontend Repair with Large Language Models.” 47th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE). 2025.
Data Intelligence
- Minh Duc Vu, Jieshan Chen, Zhenchang Xing, Qinghua Lu, Xiwei Xu, and Qian Fu. “FactFlow: Automatic Fact Sheet Generation and Customization from Tabular Dataset via AI Chain Design & Implementation.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.17909 (2025).