ReCite Found 869 Stale Function References in Linux Kernel Comments and Got 50 of 75 Submitted Patches Accepted

arXiv 2608.03734·medium signalXBlueskyLinkedInCopy link

Comments in the Linux kernel go stale when the functions they name are refactored or removed independently — a form of externally induced staleness that prior code-comment consistency work, aimed at Javadoc semantic misalignment, cannot detect. ReCite detects unresolved function-form symbols, traces each one through Git history, and generates LLM repair suggestions grounded in that evolution history. On v6.18-rc1 it found 869 stale references; manual evaluation of 200 sampled repairs rated 178 (89.0%) useful and 85 (42.5%) directly applicable, and 50 of 75 upstream patch submissions have been accepted.