-->PONE-D-25-66966-->-->A taxonomy for detecting and preventing temporal data leakage in machine learning-based build prediction: A dual-platform empirical validation-->-->PLOS One

Dear Dr. Mishra,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

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Syed Hamid Hussain Madni

Academic Editor

PLOS One

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

-->Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. -->

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

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-->2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? -->

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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-->3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.-->

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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-->4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.-->

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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-->5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)-->

Reviewer #1: 1. Revise the abstract so that it is presented as a single, coherent paragraph.

2. The introduction section is overly lengthy and should be revised to more clearly highlight the contributions of previous studies in addressing the identified problem. Clearly articulate the existing gap or prevailing challenge, then introduce the proposed methodology with a logical justification explaining why it is suitable for addressing the problem.

3. Explicit research questions are not strictly necessary in a research article. You may remove this section and instead clearly state the main contributions of the paper.

4. Revise the related work section to be more concise, focusing primarily on recent and closely related studies published in reputable journals.

5. The presentation of several sections resembles a tutorial rather than a research article. Consider replacing lengthy textual explanations with figures, flowcharts, and tables where appropriate to improve clarity and conciseness.

6. There is an overreliance on accuracy as the primary performance metric despite the presence of class imbalance, particularly in the GHALogs dataset. This limits the operational interpretability of the results, as practical CI/CD deployment decisions often depend more on precision–recall trade-offs than on raw accuracy. Incorporate cost-sensitive analysis, precision–recall curves, and scenario-based error cost evaluations.

7. Although strong claims of generalizability are made, the evaluation is limited to only two CI/CD platforms. No validation is provided for self-hosted CI systems such as Jenkins, enterprise CI platforms such as GitLab CI and Azure DevOps, or monorepo-heavy environments.

8. The conclusion section currently reads more like a summary. Rewrite it to concisely restate the proposed approach and interpret the results, highlighting the significance of the findings, the impact of the study, and potential directions for future research.

Reviewer #2: be concise and to the point, there are lots of repetitive information, paragrapghs starts just at the end of tables caption, its more looks like a thesis or book chapter instead of paper, strong need of work to be presented in a research paper style,lots of use of "we". lots of improvements required, i have highlighted many.

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-->6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.-->

Reviewer #1: Yes: Ayuba John

Reviewer #2: No

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NAAS will assess whether your figures meet our technical requirements by comparing each figure against our figure specifications.

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Reviewers Comments.pdf

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-25-66966.pdf

A taxonomy for detecting and preventing temporal data leakage in machine learning-based build prediction: A dual-platform empirical validation

PONE-D-25-66966R1

Dear Dr. Mishra,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Elochukwu Ukwandu, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS One

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

-->Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.-->

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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-->2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. -->

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

**********

-->3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? -->

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

-->4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.-->

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

-->5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.-->

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

-->6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)-->

Reviewer #1: After reviewing the authors’ responses and the revised manuscript, I am impressed with the meticulous way they addressed all the reviewers’ comments to a commendable extent. I have no doubt that the manuscript has been significantly improved and is now suitable for publication in this esteemed journal for the benefit of its readers.

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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-->7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.-->

Reviewer #1: Yes: Ayuba John

Reviewer #2: Yes: R.Marriam

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Reviewers Comments.pdf