The growing prominence of deep code models in automating software engineering tasks is undeniable. However, their deployment encounters significant challenges in on-the-fly performance enhancement , which refers to dynamically improving the performance of deep code models during real-time execution. Conventional techniques, such as retraining or fine-tuning, are effective in controlled pre-deployment scenarios but fall short when adapting to on-the-fly adjustments post-deployment. CodeDenoise, a notable on-the-fly performance enhancement technology, leverages uncertainty-based methods to identify misclassified inputs and applies an input modification strategy to rectify classification errors. While effective for classification tasks, this approach is inapplicable to generative tasks due to two key challenges: ❶ Uncertainty-based methods are unsuitable for identifying challenging inputs , especially in generative tasks with diverse and open-ended outputs. Challenging inputs refers to a class of inputs where, due to the inherent complexity of the task or insufficient context in the input samples, the model struggles to generate high-quality outputs. ❷ Input modification strategies cannot be applied to generative tasks, as modifying the input can unpredictably affect the entire sequence of generated outputs. These limitations highlight the need for novel techniques that can enhance the generation quality of deep code models in real-time. To bridge this gap, we propose CodEn , a framework designed to enhance the generation quality of deployed deep code models through model collaboration and real-time output repair. CodEn employs an ensemble learning approach, integrating multiple generic output quality assessment metrics to identify challenging inputs . By combining these diverse metrics, CodEn overcomes the limitations of uncertainty-based methods, making it effective across various generative tasks. Additionally, we introduce an elaborate on-the-fly repair method for the outputs of challenging inputs , leveraging a Large Language Model (LLM) and a novel dual-prompt strategy. This strategy utilizes both generation and selection-based prompts to provide potential fixes and employs an adaptive mechanism to select the optimal output. Our experiments, conducted on 12 deep code models across three pre-trained code models, three popular code-related generation tasks, and four datasets, demonstrate the effectiveness of CodEn . For example, in the assertion generation task, CodEn enhances the Semantic Accuracy Match (SAM) of baseline models with improvements ranging from 12.14% to 21.65%. In the bug fixing task, CodEn achieves exact match gains ranging from 17.51% to 30.64% on TFix dataset. For the code summarization task, CodEn significantly boosts performance across key metrics: BLEU scores improved by 5.72%–11.79%, ROUGE-L by 4.41%–7.70%, METEOR by 7.51%–12.29%, and CIDEr by 8.09%–15.80%. Besides, we conduct experiments of CodEn on different open source LLMs and demonstrate that CodEn can still achieve significant improvements.

Code LLMs (CLLMs) are vulnerable to adversarial attacks, where semantically identical code mutations mislead models into incorrect predictions. To address this, adversarial training has been proposed, retraining models with adversarial examples generated by attack methods. Among various attack approaches, black-box methods have attracted increasing attention due to their flexibility and applicability. However, existing black-box attack methods face two key challenges: 1) vast mutation spaces limit attack efficiency and effectiveness, and 2) resource-intensive model queries constrain scalability. These challenges hinder the practicality of black-box attacks, especially under resource constraints, prompting the critical question:Can we enhance the efficiency of existing attack methods without compromising their effectiveness?To answer this, we conduct an empirical study using Explainable AI (XAI) techniques to investigate differences between adversarial and non-adversarial (failure) examples. After analyzing state-of-the-art attack methods against two CLLMs, we introduce the concept ofmodel attention deviation, which quantifies differences in the model’s focus between unmutated (original) and mutated code. Our findings reveal that adversarial examples exhibit significant attention deviations, with the direction of deviation critically affecting attack success. Building on these insights, we propose ADVSEL, an efficient adversarial attack framework comprising two proxy components: the Attention Proxy Model (APM), which quickly estimates attention deviations to filter unpromising mutations, and the Deviation Direction Proxy Model (DDPM), which assesses whether attention shifts lead toward incorrect predictions. By integrating these proxy models with existing attack methods, ADVSELeffectively prioritizes promising mutations, significantly improving attack efficiency. Experimental evaluations across five CLLMs, four downstream tasks, and three attack methods demonstrate that ADVSEL maintains comparable attack success rates (a slight ASR reduction of 0.62%–0.70%) while significantly reducing model queries (by 34.98%–42.91%) and runtime (by 20.84%–21.45%). Under resource constraints, ADVSEL consistently outperforms baselines, highlighting its practical advantage in cost-effective adversarial evaluation.