The paper argues that answer accuracy alone is insufficient for evaluating large language model (LLM) data agents, especially in structured-data tasks where a correct answer can be produced by an invalid trace. It introduces Trace Integrity as a reliability criterion that ensures the computation behind an answer is explicit, executable, schema-valid, operator-faithful, replayable, answer-consistent, and auditable. The authors operationalize this concept with execution contracts and present the CAIT (Correct Answer / Invalid Trace) Rate to quantify how often answer-only evaluations mistakenly reward unsupported outputs, demonstrating that accuracy, trace validity, and silent-failure risk are distinct signals.
By Srimonti Dutta, Akshata Kishore Moharir
Answer accuracy is an insufficient reliability signal for LLM data agents. In structured-data tasks, a benchmark-correct answer can be produced by an invalid trace. This paper introduces Trace Integri...
arXiv:2608.17795v2 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: Text-to-SQL systems are commonly evaluated using ground-truth SQL queries or reference execution results, but such supervision is unavailable at in...
By Neelesh Kumar Shukla, Debasmita Panda, Srutanik Bhaduri, Aditya Banerjee, Vasu Rangarajan, Viji Krishnamurthy
arXiv:2606. 01365v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Tool-using multi-agent large language model (LLM) systems spend computation through model tokens, tool calls, retries, and code execution before producing an answer.
By Xianyou Li, Weiran Yan, Yichao Wu, Penghao Liang, Mengwei Yuan, Jianan Liu, Jing Yang
ContractEval is a diagnostic framework that makes active obligations in procedural instructions explicit by representing them as query‑conditioned obligations. It matches these obligations against response or trace evidence, identifying omissions, wrong branches, ordering errors, extra actions, invariant breaches, and output‑contract violations as distinct conformance failures. In tests on audited procedural contracts, ContractEval detects and localizes all injected structural failures that output‑only and trace‑aware LLM judges miss, though it is not a compliance guarantee and remains calibration‑sensitive.
By Praphul Singh, Shanu Kumar, Akshat Agarwal, Ganesh Kumar
The paper introduces TraceTrial-Bench, a benchmark that evaluates the reliability of AI agent harnesses across seven components—context, execution, governance, lifecycle, observability, tools, and verification—using 95 expert-level tasks with executable or state-based ground truth. It employs a Trajectory Tracing module to record agent execution, a two-layer evaluation framework to separately assess agent performance and harness reliability, and a Multi-source Evidence Acquisition module to gather evidence for LLM-based evaluation. The benchmark’s analysis of 3,420 runs across four harnesses and nine models shows harness scores between 59.8% and 72.0%, with 31.1% of runs succeeding despite failing at least one harness criterion, highlighting the need for auditable and reproducible harness evaluation.
By Zhiyong Cao, Hengjie Zhu, Yongxin Wang, Xuchen Li, Jintao Li, Shuxia Liu, Dunqiang Liu, Bo Wang, Kairan Zhang, Cong Lin, JiangDi Yu, Siyuan Liu, Sijia Yao, Yi-Liang Wei, Lingxu Ma, Aijia Wang, Anxin Chen, Zixian Wei, Xiang Ruan, Ruizhi Xu, Ruqian Shi, Baihua Xiao, Sicheng Zhou
arXiv:2606. 04990v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Large language model (LLM)-based agents increasingly solve complex tasks by interacting with external tools, retrieval systems, memory modules, environments, and other agents.
By Yiqi Wang, Jiaqi Zhang, Taotao Cai, Zirui Liu, Qingqiang Sun, Zequn Sun, Zhangkai Wu, Mingkai Zhang, Yanming Zhu
arXiv:2610.16067v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: Agent evaluation harnesses are software systems that run test suites, generate inputs, and decide outcomes with test oracles. This paper audits such...
By Junjie Chen
arXiv:2608.29128v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Tool-using agents are commonly evaluated by a single bit: whether an end-to-end workflow completed. This metric fails to distinguish failures that matt...
By Zelin Wan, Arash Nourian, Xiaoxiao Li, Nihar Nandan, Kamalakannan Nandagopal
arXiv:2610.27777v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Tool-using LLM agents increasingly answer e-commerce queries through multi-step tool interactions. The expected output of a tool call can shift between...
By Wenshuo Zhang, Yuquan Lin, Yushi Sun, Yishi Lin, Rui Sheng, Peng He, Han Gao, Wang Jikai, Yifeng Rong
arXiv:2608. 14590v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: LLM agents increasingly perform irreversible real-world actions, including database updates, API calls, file operations, and autonomous use of tools.
By Pierre Dantas, Lucas Cordeiro, Ehsan Nowroozi, Tihanyi Norbert
arXiv:2608. 13926v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Large language models have made natural language interfaces to databases (NLIDB) newly credible, but LLM text-to-SQL systems fail in a way that matters for deployment: a hallucinated column or a mis-aggregated total yields a fluent wrong answer, indistinguishable at the point of use from a right one.
By Zhelun (Allen), Wu