Call for papers

CFP: The 5th DL4C Workshop: Deep Learning for Code — Towards Human-Centered Coding Agents

We invite original research paper submissions on any topic relevant to deep learning for code. This year, we specifically welcome submissions addressing the emerging challenges of human-centered coding agents: systems designed not only to complete tasks autonomously, but to collaborate effectively with humans. As AI coding agents become embedded in everyday workflows, the central research challenge is shifting from task-solving capability toward communication, oversight, and trust between humans and agents. We aim to bring together researchers from Machine Learning, NLP, Human-Computer Interaction, and Software Engineering to advance this shared agenda.

We welcome all relevant submissions, and especially encourage work on the following themes:

  • Human-Centered Coding Agents Systems and methods designed for effective human–agent collaboration in coding workflows, including task alignment, steerability, controllability, and adaptability. Work on how agents communicate progress, handle ambiguity, and incorporate user feedback.

  • Interaction-Aware Benchmarks and Evaluation Benchmarks and metrics that go beyond task completion to capture interaction quality, verifiability, user satisfaction, and collaboration effectiveness in human–agent coding settings.

  • User-Involved Environments for Training and Evaluation Methods for building coding environments that incorporate real or simulated user interactions for training and evaluating coding agents, including human-in-the-loop and interactive evaluation paradigms.

  • Agentic Methods for Programming Tasks Agents capable of solving realistic coding tasks, such as resolving GitHub issues or end-to-end software development tasks, with a focus on robustness, reliability, and real-world deployment.

  • Post-training and Alignment for Code Alignment for code models, including learning from human feedback, execution feedback, and AI feedback for improved code generation and agent behavior.

  • Developer Productivity and HCI for Code Studies on human-AI interaction for code from multiple disciplines (Machine Learning, Human-Computer Interaction, Software Engineering), including empirical studies of developer productivity and usability in real-world coding scenarios.

  • Open Science and Responsible AI for Code Contributions following responsible AI practices, striving for openness and transparency, and willing to share code, models, and data. We also welcome work on developing open science practices for deep learning for code, as well as work on safety, security, and societal implications of coding agents.

  • Benchmarking and Evaluation for Code Benchmarks for code including execution-based benchmarks, code understanding, code efficiency, model-based judges, and project-level context.

  • Other topics of interest include but are not limited to:

    • Reinforcement Learning for Code
    • Data for Code
    • Pre-training Methods and Representation for Code
    • Natural Language to Code
    • Formal Methods for Code
    • Program Repair
    • Code Translation
    • Code Explanation and Summarization
    • Code Generation for Applications Beyond Code (e.g., Reasoning, Decision Making, Algorithmic Discovery)
    • Scalable Methods for Studying Human–Agent Interaction
    • Broader Societal Implications of Coding Agents in Real-World Work
    • …

Please consider submitting a paper describing your work. We welcome research papers, technical papers, position papers, and system demonstrations. We are calling for regular papers with up to 9 pages of content and short papers with up to 4 pages of content, both with unlimited references and supplementary materials. To prepare your submission, please use the LaTeX style files for ICML 2026.

Important Dates and Info

  • Submissions site: https://openreview.net/group?id=ICML.cc/2026/Workshop/DL4C
  • Submission deadline: May 15, 2026, 11:59 pm AOE. There is no separate deadline for abstracts.
  • Review period: May 17 – June 1, 2026.
  • Acceptance decisions: June 5, 2026.
  • Authors of spotlighted papers will be invited to give a short talk at the workshop and will be notified with details shortly after acceptance notifications.

DL4C is non-archival and thus dual submission is allowed where permitted by third parties. Please see the FAQ below for more details.

Authors should check their email (and spam folder) for acceptance decisions and instructions on how to submit their camera-ready paper and poster by the deadline.

FAQ

Will the OpenReview be open to the public?

We will implement the following policy:

  1. All submissions will be private — visible only to their respective authors, the assigned reviewers, and the workshop organizers — until the camera-ready due date.
  2. Acceptance and rejection decisions will be communicated individually and privately to the respective authors.
  3. Accepted submissions (abstract + PDF) will be publicly visible after the notification date.
  4. Rejected and withdrawn submissions will not become public.
  5. Reviews will not be made public. They will be visible only to the authors, the reviewers who wrote them, and the organizers.
Anonymity requirements

Submissions should be anonymized for a double-blind review. We do not set an anonymity period.

That means you must submit your paper PDF with author names and affiliations removed, but you can still share it publicly on platforms like ArXiv or on social media.

Dual submission

We accept submissions of the following types:

  1. Fully original work not under review elsewhere.
  2. Work that is under review at another venue (e.g., NeurIPS, ARR). If you submit, please ensure you are not violating the submission guidelines and anonymity requirements of the other venue(s).

For authors of work accepted at ICML 2026 who wish to promote their work at DL4C, we will be happy to consider a dual submission. Such work will not be reviewed and is exempt from spotlighting, but a poster slot is available upon request. The DL4C organizers will decide whether the work will be cross-listed on the DL4C website solely based on its relevance to DL4C.

For works accepted at venues other than ICML 2026, we still require submitting the paper through the portal and going through the normal reviewing process to decide if it will be accepted and presented at DL4C.

For any other questions, please contact us with your paper and situation.

How do I submit a paper?

Please submit your work at https://openreview.net/group?id=ICML.cc/2026/Workshop/DL4C.

Are we allowed to submit a paper with an appendix?

Yes, you can submit an appendix, but reviewers are not required to review it.

Student Funding

We expect funding for students, especially from under-represented groups and/or those with financial difficulty, thanks to our generous sponsors. Details will be announced closer to the workshop date.

Awards and prizes

We will have awards at the workshop. Details will be announced later.

How do I submit a poster?

Accepted papers will be invited to submit a poster to be displayed during the workshop. The link to upload the poster will be shared after acceptance notifications.

How do I submit a demo?

Please contact us.