arXiv AI

EnvOS: Auditing Computer-Use Agents When the World Moves On : Phenomenon-Based Task Construction, Certification, and Evidence-Based Evaluation

EnvOS is a framework that audits computer‑use agents operating in dynamic software environments, ensuring that mid‑task changes fire correctly, tasks remain solvable, and grading is accurate. It verifies these conditions before and after agent runs, using archived evidence to re‑check verdicts. Applied to stale‑information scenarios, EnvOS revealed significant performance gaps for large language models, highlighting how unseen updates can derail agent behavior.

arXiv AI
Oct 2

Verify Claims, Not Scores: Evidence-Based Verification of Modular Agents

The paper proposes a claim‑specific verification audit for modular agents that replaces aggregate task scores with evidence‑based evaluations. Each agent conclusion is recorded with supporting evidence and classified as supported, unsupported, unresolved, or not evaluated, along with the boundary of validity. The audit employs three tools—oracle policies, perfect component replacements, and verifier‑score tests—to trace value changes, locate lost value, and assess verifier effectiveness, demonstrated on a portfolio‑allocation agent in a synthetic market.

By Ali Atiah Alzahrani
arXiv Computation and Language
Oct 9

TRACE: Diagnosing Verifier Brittleness in Agentic Evaluation

The paper introduces TRACE, a protocol designed to diagnose whether changes in verifier scores for large language model agents reflect actual changes in agent behavior or merely alterations in the evaluation process. TRACE works by applying targeted changes to evaluation components, running paired experiments, and re‑scoring unchanged trajectories to isolate the source of score variation. Experiments on synthetic tasks and public benchmark tasks demonstrate that seemingly significant score shifts can often be attributed to evaluation artifacts, while TRACE can also detect genuine behavioral changes.

By Radhika Gaonkar
arXiv AI
Oct 27

Thinking-in-Bets at Test Time Reduces Sycophantic Revisions in LLM Agents

The paper introduces Thinking‑in‑Bets, a training‑free technique where a language‑model agent records its key claims, supporting checks, and confidence before receiving user feedback. By consulting this private claim checklist when challenged, the agent preserves verified work and focuses on uncertain or newly contested parts, reducing sycophantic revisions. Experiments on five Gemini models across eight benchmarks show that pre‑reply claim records nearly eliminate false reversals in patch review, protect report drafts from mistaken pushback, and lower unnecessary edits in multi‑turn coding while improving accuracy and confidence in non‑interactive tasks.

By Nghi D. Q. Bui
arXiv AI
6d ago

Soei: Structured Observability of Evidence and Intent for Multi-Agent AI Software Engineering

The paper introduces Soei, a structured observability framework for AI coding agents, addressing the need to track what work was done, by whom, and whether it is finished. It evaluates an existing tool, Agenttrail, revealing inconsistencies and security gaps, and presents empirical findings from 45 real coding-agent sessions, highlighting issues such as unverified code edits and credential exposure. Soei comprises an event schema, hash‑chained ledger, PROV‑aligned graph, and verification layer, achieving efficient storage, fast verification, and tamper detection on the same dataset.

By Mohammed Nayeem Khan, K S Sarun Kumar
arXiv AI
6d ago

Agentic process evidence

The article discusses how AI agents are transforming software development by autonomously creating pull requests, selecting dependencies, refactoring code, interpreting test failures, and managing infrastructure across the SDLC. It highlights the lack of accountability for these transient processes, noting that traditional tools like git logs and governance frameworks assume human decision‑making, which no longer applies. To address this, the authors propose Agentic Process Evidence (APE), a signed, tamper‑evident, machine‑readable attestation that links AI agent sessions to their outcomes, enabling policy‑as‑code controls and human oversight only when necessary.

By Yuval Kainan, Carmit Hershman
arXiv AI
Oct 15

Evidence-First Agentic Verification

arXiv:2610.17724v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Long-horizon, semi-verifiable agentic tasks often rely on rubric-based evaluation, but the evidence needed to assess these tasks can be spread across t...

By Reza Sanayei, Razvan-Gabriel Dumitru, Sunjie Hou, MohammadHossein Rezaei, Haris Riaz, Robert Vacareanu, Minglai Yang, Ying Liu, Mihai Surdeanu, Daniel Yue Zhang