arXiv Computation and Language By Areej Mehboob, Muhammad Ali Shafique, Muhammad Usman Qadeer, Hamza Farooq

Beyond Accuracy: How Quantization Affects Coding Agents

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The paper investigates how quantization affects coding agents that generate and revise programs. It compares BF16, 4‑bit AWQ, and GPTQ quantization methods on Qwen2.5‑Coder‑Instruct and Devstral‑Small‑2507 models across various sizes and seeds, finding no significant loss in final accuracy. However, quantization changes behavior: it alters one‑shot versus loop‑based solve rates, tool‑use patterns, and failure modes such as compilation errors and runtime issues.

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