ATHENE Mission Project · TU Darmstadt

SecureCoder

Security-Aware Code Generation and Evaluation

Large Language Models are reshaping software development, but their ability to generate secure code remains an open challenge. SecureCoder is a collaborative research initiative at TU Darmstadt that works on this problem at the level of the model and at the level of the agent: efficient code models built on state space and diffusion architectures, reinforcement learning from verifiable rewards, and security checks built into the loop of coding agents.

Our work brings together expertise in programming languages, natural language processing, and machine learning to produce developer-friendly tools, including a plugin for coding agents such as Claude Code and Codex and a JetBrains IDE plugin, that raise the bar for safe AI-assisted development.

What the SecureCoder plugin does each time a coding agent edits a file.

News

Latest updates from the SecureCoder project

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Research

Three lines of work, from the model architecture up to the agent that uses it

Model Training: State Space & Diffusion Models

We train State Space Models for code, which scale linearly with context length, and Diffusion Language Models, which generate code in parallel and can enforce constraints during generation. We also explore training on data filtered for secure code, so that models learn secure patterns from the start.

Off-Policy RL with Verifiable Rewards

Tests, compilers, and static analyzers give a reward signal without human annotation, one that can penalize vulnerable code directly. We develop novel off-policy RLVR algorithms for diffusion language models, with dense, token-level rewards.

Agentic Code Generation for Security

We build multi-agent systems in which generator and verifier agents check each other's work, and wire static analysis and CWE knowledge directly into the loop of coding agents, so vulnerabilities are caught and repaired before the code reaches the developer.

Products

Open tools built from our research, ready to use in your workflow

IDE Integration

JetBrains IDE Plugin

A coding agent that runs inside IntelliJ IDEA and other JetBrains IDEs. Describe a change, and the agent generates the code, checks it with security critics (an LLM reviewer, CodeQL, and a CWE knowledge base), and repairs it before showing you the proposal. Each edit appears as a diff you review and apply yourself; nothing is written until you do. Model, provider, and critics are configurable.

Agent Harnesses

SecureCoder Plugin for Coding Agents

Brings security checks into the loop of coding agents such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and OpenCode, with skills and MCP tools for GitHub Copilot, VS Code, and Kiro. It adds secure-coding constraints to the agent's prompt, scans every edited file with syntax checks, semgrep, and bandit (CodeQL on demand), and guides the agent through fixing and re-checking its findings. All analysis runs locally.

/plugin marketplace add securecoder-project/securecoder-plugin
/plugin install securecoder@securecoder

Publications

Research outputs from the SecureCoder project

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Team

Principal investigators and researchers driving the SecureCoder initiative

Mira Mezini
Prof. Mira Mezini
Principal Investigator
Software Technology Group · TU Darmstadt

Programming languages, software engineering, and AI-assisted development with a focus on code correctness and security.

Iryna Gurevych
Prof. Iryna Gurevych
Principal Investigator
UKP Lab · TU Darmstadt

Natural language processing, information extraction, and large language model research for understanding and generating text and code.

Kristian Kersting
Prof. Kristian Kersting
Principal Investigator
ML Group · TU Darmstadt

Machine learning, statistical relational AI, and deep learning with applications to structured prediction and reasoning.

Dr. Amir Molzam
Dr. Amir Molzam
Postdoctoral Researcher
Software Technology Group · TU Darmstadt
Dr. Tobias Reinhard
Dr. Tobias Reinhard
Postdoctoral Researcher
Software Technology Group · TU Darmstadt
Abhinav Anand
Abhinav Anand
Doctoral Researcher
Software Technology Group · TU Darmstadt
Shweta Verma
Shweta Verma
Doctoral Researcher
Software Technology Group · TU Darmstadt
Daniel Maninger
Daniel Maninger
Doctoral Researcher
Software Technology Group · TU Darmstadt
Mert Tiftikci
Mert Tiftikci
Doctoral Researcher
Software Technology Group · TU Darmstadt

Contact

Questions about our research, tools, or a possible collaboration? Write to us.