Code-A1: Adversarial Evolving of Code LLM and Test LLM via Reinforcement Learning

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Wang, Aozhe, Yan, Yuchen, Zhou, Nan, Lu, Zhengxi, Lu, Weiming, Xiao, Jun, Zhuang, Yueting, Shen, Yongliang
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Wang, Aozhe
Yan, Yuchen
Zhou, Nan
Lu, Zhengxi
Lu, Weiming
Xiao, Jun
Zhuang, Yueting
Shen, Yongliang
author_facet Wang, Aozhe
Yan, Yuchen
Zhou, Nan
Lu, Zhengxi
Lu, Weiming
Xiao, Jun
Zhuang, Yueting
Shen, Yongliang
contents Reinforcement learning for code generation relies on verifiable rewards from unit test pass rates. Yet high-quality test suites are scarce, existing datasets offer limited coverage, and static rewards fail to adapt as models improve. Recent self-play methods unify code and test generation in a single model, but face a inherent dilemma: white-box access leads to self-collusion where the model produces trivial tests for easy rewards, yet black-box restriction yields generic tests that miss implementation-specific bugs. We introduce Code-A1, an adversarial co-evolution framework that jointly optimizes a Code LLM and a Test LLM with opposing objectives. The Code LLM is rewarded for passing more tests, while the Test LLM is rewarded for exposing more defects. This architectural separation eliminates self-collusion risks and safely enables white-box test generation, where the Test LLM can inspect candidate code to craft targeted adversarial tests. We further introduce a Mistake Book mechanism for experience replay and a composite reward balancing test validity with adversarial difficulty. Experiments on Qwen2.5-Coder models demonstrate that Code-A1 achieves code generation performance matching or exceeding models trained on human-annotated tests, while significantly improving test generation capability.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_15611
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Code-A1: Adversarial Evolving of Code LLM and Test LLM via Reinforcement Learning
Wang, Aozhe
Yan, Yuchen
Zhou, Nan
Lu, Zhengxi
Lu, Weiming
Xiao, Jun
Zhuang, Yueting
Shen, Yongliang
Computation and Language
Reinforcement learning for code generation relies on verifiable rewards from unit test pass rates. Yet high-quality test suites are scarce, existing datasets offer limited coverage, and static rewards fail to adapt as models improve. Recent self-play methods unify code and test generation in a single model, but face a inherent dilemma: white-box access leads to self-collusion where the model produces trivial tests for easy rewards, yet black-box restriction yields generic tests that miss implementation-specific bugs. We introduce Code-A1, an adversarial co-evolution framework that jointly optimizes a Code LLM and a Test LLM with opposing objectives. The Code LLM is rewarded for passing more tests, while the Test LLM is rewarded for exposing more defects. This architectural separation eliminates self-collusion risks and safely enables white-box test generation, where the Test LLM can inspect candidate code to craft targeted adversarial tests. We further introduce a Mistake Book mechanism for experience replay and a composite reward balancing test validity with adversarial difficulty. Experiments on Qwen2.5-Coder models demonstrate that Code-A1 achieves code generation performance matching or exceeding models trained on human-annotated tests, while significantly improving test generation capability.
title Code-A1: Adversarial Evolving of Code LLM and Test LLM via Reinforcement Learning
topic Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.15611