{"id":89527,"date":"2026-09-25T12:00:47","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T03:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/top\/en\/?p=89527"},"modified":"2026-09-24T14:07:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T05:07:17","slug":"bridging-the-information-gap-ai-driven-quality-control-for-5g-multicast-broadcasting-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/top\/en\/news\/89527","title":{"rendered":"mkcheck2: A Highly Efficient and Accurate Approach for Build Dependency Verification"},"content":{"rendered":"

mkcheck2: A Highly Efficient and Accurate Approach for Build Dependency Verification<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The proposed approach significantly reduces performance overhead, making continuous dependency verification in large-scale projects practical<\/em><\/p>\n

Build systems are a fundamental component of modern software development. Dependency-related errors represent a significant portion of build errors in large-scale projects. However, existing tools for detecting these errors struggle to achieve both high performance and accuracy. In a new study, researchers developed mkcheck2, which reduces performance overhead by up to 99.7% while maintaining accuracy through an efficient eBPF-based system call tracing method and incremental analysis, thereby making continuous dependency verification practical.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Image title<\/strong>: mkcheck2 system architecture and workflow
\nImage caption<\/strong>: The mkcheck2 system significantly reduces performance overhead (99.7%) and analysis time (54\u00d7 faster) compared to traditional approaches while maintaining high accuracy (100% for missing dependencies), making continuous dependency verification practical for large-scale software projects.
\nImage credit<\/strong>: Professor Hironori Washizaki from Waseda University
\nLicense type<\/strong>: Original content
\nUsage restrictions<\/strong>: Cannot be reused without permission<\/p>\n

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Before users can interact with computer software, its source code must be converted into executable binaries and software packages, a task handled by specialized tools known as build systems. Build systems are therefore a fundamental component of modern software development and have evolved into complex distributed systems that manage dependencies, optimize resources, and ensure correctness across large-scale projects. Studies have shown that build maintenance can consume up to 27% of a developer’s time in large projects.<\/p>\n

One of the most challenging aspects of build system maintenance is dependency management. Dependency-related errors account for more than 50% of build errors in large-scale software projects. Missing dependencies, in which a dependency is not declared in the build manifest, can lead to incorrect builds or failures, while redundant dependencies result in unnecessary rebuilds and low build performance. Both types of errors become increasingly difficult to manage as codebases grow in size and complexity. Although several approaches have been proposed to detect dependency errors, many introduce substantial runtime overhead and struggle to achieve the combination of performance and accuracy required for continuous integration environments.<\/p>\n

To address this challenge, a research team led by Professor Hironori Washizaki of Waseda University has developed a new method called “mkcheck2.” \u201cConventional dependency error detection methods that utilize ptrace-based system call tracing, while being accurate, introduce high runtime overhead due to operating in user space, requiring frequent process suspensions and context switches for each system call,<\/em>\u201d explains Washizaki. \u201cIn contrast, our approach utilizes eBPF, a lightweight system call monitoring technology, combined with incremental analysis to significantly reduce verification time.<\/em>\u201d The team also included Associate Professor Kazunori Sakamoto from Tokyo Online University and Yuta Saito from Waseda University. Their study was published in the Proceedings of the 2026 IEEE\/ACM 48th International Conference on Software Engineering<\/em><\/a>, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from April 12\u201318, 2026, and was made available online on September 11, 2026. ICSE is the premier conference in the field of software engineering.<\/p>\n

mkcheck2 addresses two fundamental challenges in build dependency verification: the performance overhead of system call tracing and the computational cost of dependency graph analysis. It consists of three main components:<\/p>\n