Autonomous AI agents are transforming software development and redefining how developers collaborate with AI. Prior research shows that the adoption and use of AI-powered tools differ between core and peripheral developers. However, it remains unclear how this dynamic unfolds in the emerging era of autonomous coding agents. In this paper, we present the first empirical study of 9,427 agentic PRs, examining how core and peripheral developers use, review, modify, and verify agent-generated contributions prior to acceptance. Through a mix of qualitative and quantitative analysis, we make four key contributions. First, a subset of peripheral developers use agents more often, delegating tasks evenly across bug fixing, feature addition, documentation, and testing. In contrast, core developers focus more on documentation and testing, yet their agentic PRs are frequently merged into the main/master branch. Second, core developers engage slightly more in review discussions than peripheral developers, and both groups focus on evolvability issues. Third, agentic PRs are less likely to be modified, but when they are, both groups commonly perform refactoring. Finally, peripheral developers are more likely to merge without running CI checks, whereas core developers more consistently require passing verification before acceptance. Our analysis offers a comprehensive view of how developer experience shapes integration offer insights for both peripheral and core developers on how to effectively collaborate with coding agents.

翻译：自主AI智能体正在变革软件开发，并重新定义开发者与AI的协作方式。先前研究表明，核心开发者与外围开发者对AI驱动工具的采纳和使用存在差异。然而，这种动态在新兴的自主编码智能体时代如何展开尚不明确。本文首次对9,427个智能体生成的PR（Pull Request）进行实证研究，探讨核心与外围开发者在接受前如何使用、审查、修改和验证智能体生成的贡献。通过定性与定量相结合的分析，我们提出了四项关键发现。首先，部分外围开发者更频繁地使用智能体，将任务均衡地分配给错误修复、功能添加、文档编写和测试；而核心开发者则更侧重于文档和测试，但其智能体生成的PR被合并到主分支的频率更高。其次，核心开发者比外围开发者略微更多地参与审查讨论，且两组都关注可演化性问题。第三，智能体生成的PR被修改的可能性较低，但当修改发生时，两组开发者都常进行重构操作。最后，外围开发者更倾向于在不运行CI检查的情况下合并PR，而核心开发者则更一致地要求在通过验证后才接受贡献。我们的分析全面揭示了开发者经验如何影响智能体集成，并为外围和核心开发者如何有效与编码智能体协作提供了见解。