UniCode: Augmenting Evaluation for Code Reasoning
For researchers and practitioners evaluating LLM code reasoning, UniCode provides a robust framework to reveal model fragility and shortcut learning, addressing the inflation of capabilities in current benchmarks.
UniCode exposes that state-of-the-art LLMs collapse by 31.2% on code reasoning tasks due to reliance on shortcuts rather than genuine reasoning, with deficiencies in conceptual modeling and scalability reasoning.
Current coding benchmarks often inflate Large Language Model (LLM) capabilities due to static paradigms and data contamination, enabling models to exploit statistical shortcuts rather than genuine reasoning. To address this, we introduce UniCode, a generative evaluation framework that systematically probes LLM limits via: (1) multi-dimensional augmentation transforming seed problems into complex variations to disrupt fixed algorithmic patterns; (2) a highly reliable, automated test generation pipeline for scalable evaluation; and (3) fine-grained metrics for rich error signals. Experiments reveal a 31.2% performance collapse in state-of-the-art models on UniCode, primarily driven by deficiencies in conceptual modeling and scalability reasoning rather than syntactic errors. Furthermore, we uncover a seed-problem regression where models revert to memorized seed logic rather than following new specifications, signaling a reliance on shortcuts over reasoning. This work validates UniCode as a robust framework to expose model fragility and foster reasoning-oriented code intelligence.