Research / Claims
Claims table
Every claim (C01–C13) from the original research brief, independently verified against primary sources.
Full detail for each claim, including every source URL opened, is in claims.md.
MQT QCEC capabilities / overlap with proposed idea
FALSE (overlap claim); CONFIRMED (existence/capabilities)
Mature equivalence-checking library (decision-diagram / ZX-calculus engines), Qiskit + OpenQASM only. Its own CI is an OS/compiler matrix only — no SDK-version matrix, no CI/CD product for user projects.
Source: github.com/munich-quantum-toolkit/qcec (README + CI YAML); mqt.readthedocs.io verification handbook
MQT Debugger capabilities / overlap with proposed idea
FALSE (overlap claim); CONFIRMED (existence/capabilities)
Assertion-based, single-run simulation debugger with DAP IDE integration, OpenQASM input. No cross-version or CI regression capability.
Source: github.com/munich-quantum-toolkit/debugger; arXiv:2412.12269
“Q-Trace” / other quantum debugging systems overlap with proposed idea
FALSE (“Q-Trace” itself); real systems found operate at single-run fault-localization level only
“Q-Trace” is not a real named tool. QMon, TraceQ, the Microsoft QDK Trace Simulator, CUDA-Q statistical assertions, Proq, Bloq/AutoBloq, and MorphQ were all verified — none do cross-version/cross-SDK regression testing or CI integration.
Source: arxiv.org/html/2512.13422; arxiv.org/pdf/2508.14533; arxiv.org/abs/2507.16255; arxiv.org/abs/2506.18458; arxiv.org/pdf/2206.01111
≈31% of quantum developers use quantum-specific testing tools (practitioner survey)
CONFIRMED
Exact quote “Only eight of 26 respondents (31%)…” verified in the full PDF text, Finding 2, Section 5.2, p.18. N=26 survey, IRB-approved, fielded in 2024. Authors flag the small-N limitation themselves.
Source: arXiv:2506.17306 (Zappin, Stalnaker, Chaparro, Poshyvanyk; to appear ACM TOSEM)
First alleged arXiv paper (evidence for the gap)
PARTIALLY CONFIRMED — no pre-given ID existed to check; best reconstructed candidate is highly material
No specific ID was supplied. Best candidate found: QUTest (arXiv:2605.19736) — a published cross-Qiskit-version regression-testing tool with CI-compatible (JUnit/xUnit) output. This partially contradicts the originally claimed gap rather than supporting it.
Source: arxiv.org/abs/2605.19736 (full HTML verified)
Second alleged arXiv paper (evidence for the gap)
PARTIALLY CONFIRMED (same caveat as C05)
Best candidates: the 31%-survey paper itself (arXiv:2506.17306, supports the need but is not a tool paper) and arXiv:2410.00650 (broad testing/analysis survey, no CI/CD content, general background only).
Source: arxiv.org/abs/2506.17306; arxiv.org/abs/2410.00650
No dedicated standard bug corpus exists for quantum SDK versions / regression testing
FALSE
Bugs4Q (arXiv:2108.09744, JSS 2023) is a real, “widely used” 36+ bug corpus; arXiv:2606.27124 already ran it across 21 Qiskit versions / 77,700 executions and found reproducibility collapsed 62.2%→16.2%. QBugs, a 32,296-report mined dataset, and QBugLM also exist. No corpus is a universal standard, but the “none exists” framing is false.
Source: arXiv:2108.09744; arXiv:2606.27124; arXiv:2103.16968; arXiv:2512.24656; github.com/Z-928/Bugs4Q
An open-source pytest plugin already does full cross-SDK-version regression discovery/execution/comparison in CI
PARTIALLY CONFIRMED
pytest-quantum, qtest-quantum, and qc-assert are real, installable, but do framework-to-framework (not version-to-version) equivalence or single-run assertions only; all are under 9 months old, 0–2 stars. No plugin executes across multiple SDK versions with automated diffing.
Source: github.com/qbench/pytest-quantum; github.com/metin-5115/qtest; github.com/JMORAF87/qc-assert; PyPI release metadata
Existing GitHub Actions products combine quantum SDKs with matrix builds / regression / equivalence testing
CONFIRMED (narrow)
Qiskit’s official ecosystem CI template (test_latest / development / minimum_versions.yml) is real, reusable, and active across ~8 repos — but only checks pass/fail of existing tests per version tier, it doesn’t diff behavior. Qiskit core’s qpy.yml does genuine but narrowly-scoped (serialization-only) cross-version regression testing, internal only.
Source: github.com/Qiskit/qiskit-addon-cutting; github.com/Qiskit/qiskit/blob/main/.github/workflows/qpy.yml
Cross-SDK or cross-version quantum regression testing already exists as reusable open tooling
PARTIALLY CONFIRMED
quantum-transpiler-regression-testing (“cart,” Zenodo DOI 10.5281/zenodo.21020113, June 2026) found 38% of real Qiskit transpiler bug-fixes are regressions invisible to equivalence oracles — single-SDK, CLI-based, brand-new, 0 stars. QUTest (C05) does cross-Qiskit-version testing with CI output. No cross-SDK tool of any kind was found.
Source: github.com/furqan-nr/quantum-transpiler-regression-testing; Zenodo 10.5281/zenodo.21020113; arXiv:2605.19736
Other equivalence/regression tooling exists beyond MQT QCEC
NOT FOUND (beyond items already catalogued under C01/C05/C10)
GitHub search for “quantum equivalence checking” returned only unrelated/unverified SAT-solver student projects.
Source: gh search repos “quantum equivalence checking”
A dedicated product combines quantum testing + state-awareness + autonomy + CI/CD + cross-version regression
NOT FOUND AFTER SEARCH
The individual pieces exist separately (QBugLM is agentic and quantum-specific but has no CI/CD or state-awareness; generic autonomous testing agents exist only for classical software). No system combines all elements.
Source: arXiv:2606.07314; general web search
Overall research gap: does a genuine, defensible gap remain?
PARTIALLY CONFIRMED — a gap exists but is much narrower than originally framed
The narrow, defensible gap is: pytest-native + cross-SDK (not just cross-version) + automated regression/equivalence detection (not hand-written assertions) + reusable drop-in GitHub Actions packaging. No single system combines all four; several systems solve one or two of the four pieces.
Source: Synthesis of C01–C12 — see the Gap Analysis page
Raw table with full per-claim source links: research/claims.md in the GitHub repository