Fix the "Scaffold" Before You "Make the Model Stronger"—How Microsoft Had Its Coding Agent Rewrite Its Own Work Environment to Boost SWE-bench
Microsoft Research's Self-HPO has a coding agent rewrite its own "scaffold (harness)" and trains it in alternation with the weights. With a 35B model, the SWE-bench average rose from 57.8% to 64.8%. A read on the synergy between scaffold and weights, and the pitfalls of self-improvement.