The Role Specialization Model (RSM): Coordinating LLM-Based Tools in Agentic Software Development - An Exploratory Case Study
2026-08-12 • Software Engineering
Software Engineering
AI summaryⓘ
The authors studied how different language model tools can work together to build software, using a new method they call the Role Specialization Model (RSM). They tested this by developing a Python app for climate data visualization, observing how the tools' roles sometimes shifted and what caused those changes. Their findings show that clearly assigning roles to these tools helps organize the project and improve design quality, but it also needs careful planning and human oversight to ensure good results.
large language modelsAgentic Software EngineeringRole Specialization Modelsoftware development lifecyclePython programminginteractive visualizationISO/IEC 25010prompt engineeringhuman-in-the-loop
Authors
Carlos Alberto Fernández-y-Fernández, Jorge R. Aguilar-Cisneros
Abstract
The integration of large language models (LLMs) into software development workflows has given rise to a paradigm known as Agentic Software Engineering (SE 3.0), in which autonomous agents manage full development life cycles under human supervision. This paper presents an exploratory case study in which three LLM-based tools, Antigravity (an agentic IDE with a Gemini 2.5 backend), Gemini CLI, and Qwen Code (local execution via Ollama), are coordinated according to a role-distribution framework proposed in this work as the Role Specialization Model (RSM). Three research questions guide the study: (RQ1) how can LLM-based tools with distinct capabilities be coordinated through the RSM in a real development workflow; (RQ2) what deviations from the planned role distribution emerge during RSM execution and what factors explain them; and (RQ3) how does the resulting product compare against the ISO/IEC 25010 quality model. The objective was to propose the RSM with the incremental development of a Python desktop application for interactive climate-data visualization. The workflow, observed deviations, prompt-hardening techniques, and a qualitative quality assessment are documented. Results suggest that explicit role coordination can support development cycle organization and architectural quality, but requires deliberate coordination strategies, context management, and human verification of agent-generated outputs.