RepoTrace: Browser-Assisted Evidence Collection for GitHub Research Datasets
2026-07-06 • Software Engineering
Software Engineering
AI summaryⓘ
The authors address a common problem in software engineering research where data from GitHub issues and pull requests is collected manually across multiple files and tools, making it hard to track sources and decisions. They created RepoTrace, a tool that helps gather and organize all this information in one place by capturing snapshots, comments, labels, and notes linked directly to the original GitHub pages. They tested RepoTrace on Matplotlib issues and showed it can keep detailed records and support the entire data collection workflow locally. This helps researchers keep their data and reasoning connected and easier to review.
GitHub issuespull requestssoftware engineering researchdata collection workflowSQLitebrowser extensionReact dashboarddata provenancemanual labelingdataset validation
Authors
Xue Yao, Zehua Zhang, Jiatong Liu, Yongqiang Tian
Abstract
Empirical software engineering studies frequently build datasets from GitHub issues and pull requests. In many projects, researchers inspect pages in a browser, copy selected fields into spreadsheets, keep side notes in separate documents, and later run scripts to normalize or export the data. This workflow is flexible, but the page evidence, the research codes, and the rationale behind each decision end up spread across tabs and files, which leaves provenance, update tracking, and multi-reviewer labeling hard to audit. RepoTrace is a browser-assisted research tool that collects GitHub issue and pull-request evidence into a local SQLite-backed workspace. It combines a Chrome side-panel extension, an Express backend, and a React dashboard to capture page snapshots, comments, labels, notes, screening and labeling decisions, refresh history, and scoped exports, keeping the source evidence and the research interpretation linked together. A validation pass collected and checked 20 Matplotlib issues across two study projects. The resulting dataset preserves 22 snapshots, 38 comments, 20 research notes, 98 annotations, 20 screening reviews, 20 fix-evidence entries, and 4 simulated unresolved consensus conflicts. The results show that RepoTrace can support a complete local evidence-collection workflow for manually constructed GitHub issue and pull-request datasets.