Disrupting developer productivity one bot at a time

Bots are used to support different software development activities, from automating repetitive tasks to bridging knowledge and communication gaps in software teams. We anticipate the use of Bots will increase and lead to improvements in software quality and developer and team productivity, but what if the disruptive effect is not what we expect? Our goal in this paper is to provoke and inspire researchers to study the impact (positive and negative) of Bots on software development. We outline the modern Bot landscape and use examples to describe the common roles Bots occupy in software teams. We propose a preliminary cognitive support framework that can be used to understand these roles and to reflect on the impact of Bots in software development on productivity. Finally, we consider challenges that Bots may bring and propose some directions for future research.