What Do Developers Ask ChatGPT the Most?

This study categorizes and analyzes 580 real developer prompts to ChatGPT gathered from GitHub issues and pull requests. Using open coding, researchers identified 16 recurring types of software engineering inquiries, revealing that most interactions focus on code generation, conceptual understanding, “how-to” questions, and issue resolution. The findings highlight ChatGPT’s evolving role as both a coding assistant and knowledge partner in collaborative software development — offering valuable insights for improving AI-powered engineering tools and prompt-design practices.