Study: Agents read instructions/notes 60.5% of the time, rarely touch API docs

dair_ai · x · 2026-08-24

A study analyzing 557 agentic coding sessions and 94K development events reveals key behaviors:

Reading habits: Instruction files and working notes account for 60.5% of what agents read, while classical technical docs make up 10.6% and API references only 1.3%.
Testing correlation: Reading docs is associated with less immediate testing (adjusted odds ratio of 0.39).
Consultation triggers: 70.2% of consultations are self-initiated, compared to 7.5% driven by failure.
Edit patterns: In multi-commit agentic PRs, code is touched first 4.7x more often than other files.

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