@inproceedings{zhao-etal-2026-demystify,
    title = "Demystify the Role of Memory in Machine Learning Engineering Agents",
    author = "Zhao, Xinyu  and
      Wang, Junpeng  and
      Chen, Yuzhong  and
      Pan, Menghai  and
      Yeh, Chin-Chia Michael  and
      Sun, Jiarui  and
      Zheng, Yan  and
      Das, Mahashweta  and
      Chen, Tianlong",
    editor = "Liakata, Maria  and
      Moreira, Viviane P.  and
      Zhang, Jiajun  and
      Jurgens, David",
    booktitle = "Findings of the {A}ssociation for {C}omputational {L}inguistics: {ACL} 2026",
    month = jul,
    year = "2026",
    address = "San Diego, California, United States",
    publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
    url = "https://preview.aclanthology.org/ingest-acl/2026.findings-acl.525/",
    pages = "10811--10826",
    ISBN = "979-8-89176-395-1",
    abstract = "While memory is a core component in agent systems, its behavioral impact in complex, long-horizon domains like machine learning engineering (MLE) remains poorly understood. Unlike short, reactive exchanges, MLE agents solve tasks through cycles of experimentation and improvement where past errors can inform future success. This paper presents a systematic study dissecting how memory influences agent behavior and performance across diverse MLE challenges. We first introduce a dynamic coding memory designed to capture and reuse debugging experiences, and integrate it into two representative agent paradigms: a sequential, chain-based agent that mirrors human-like iterative refinement, and a parallel, tree-based agent that performs broad, self-exploratory search in the code space. Our central finding is that the role of memory is contingent on the agent{'}s underlying architecture. For chain-based agents, memory proves highly beneficial, enabling them to avoid recurring mistakes and engage in more coherent, iterative refinement, which significantly improves reliability and task success. In contrast, for tree-based search agents, memory introduces a critical trade-off: it enhances procedural stability at the cost of constraining search diversity, which can prematurely narrow exploration and lead to suboptimal final solutions. These findings reveal a fundamental trade-off between procedural reliability and solution innovation modulated by memory, offering insights for designing more effective and robust MLE agents."
}