arXiv Machine Learning

Verified Detection and Prevention of Concurrency Anomalies in Multi-Agent Large Language Model Systems

arXiv:2606. 17182v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Multi-agent LLM systems share state through memory stores, vector indices, and tool registries.

arXiv AI
Sep 25

Stale Does Not Mean Unsafe: Guard Precision for Tool-Using LLM Agents under Infrastructure State Races

The paper investigates how tool‑using language‑model agents can safely commit changes to infrastructure when external state may change between read and commit. By distinguishing invalidating races from predicate‑preserving and irrelevant ones, the authors evaluate three commit‑time guard granularities—global epoch, read‑set version, and semantic commit predicate—using a deterministic simulator and three quantized model families. The study finds that only the complete predicate guard consistently eliminates unsafe commits, while freshness‑based guards block a large proportion of benign races and model‑side signals fail to replace precise semantic enforcement.

By Zihao Zheng, Jiayu Long, Baichuan Li, Junyi Yao
arXiv AI
4d ago

Boundary-State Control for Tool-Using Language-Model Agents: Commit-Time Consistency under State Drift

The paper introduces BSC‑R, a deterministic effect‑boundary mechanism that ties a single‑use commit authorization to the specific action and the semantic state that justified it, aiming to close the proposal‑to‑commit gap in tool‑using language‑model agents. Experiments on 2,847 AgentDojo episodes and 10,302 frozen proposals show that BSC‑R preserves the agent’s original behavior while rejecting unauthorized changes, and further tests on a boundary‑drift experiment and the CONTINUITY suite demonstrate high success rates in valid contexts and robust handling of replay and ambiguous cases. However, broader testing reveals that BSC‑R still allows a 25% invalid‑effect commit rate in a larger attack set, indicating that it provides scoped, not universal, safety.

By Wesley Shu
arXiv AI
Aug 26

The Empire, Long Divided, Must Unite: Architectural Convergence in Three LLM Agent Harnesses

The paper examines three open-source agent harnesses—LangChain’s deepagents, Earendil’s pi, and DeepSeek’s dsh—each built from contrasting design philosophies. By analyzing their source code and commit histories, the authors find that the mature harnesses converge on five common architectural elements: a commoditized loop, an append‑only replayable session record, model quirks stored as data, progressive disclosure of context, and explicit extension seams. A fourth harness, used as a held‑out check, also displays all five elements and even reuses another’s implementation, indicating that convergence arises from parallel discovery, diffusion, and literal reuse rather than independent invention. The study notes a missing dimension—external verifiability via a tamper‑evident record—highlighting a future axis for provenance‑sensitive domains.

By Dai Jiahong
arXiv AI
Sep 2

REVISE: Validity-Guided Recovery for Online Revisions in Agent Workflows

The paper introduces “Revise”, a runtime system that performs validity-guided, fine-grained recovery for online revisions in structured agent workflows. When a revision arrives, Revise intersects the change with recorded data and control dependencies, propagates the impact through the partially executed DAG, stops invalid work, preserves unaffected progress, and recomputes only the affected region. Experiments on real coding‑agent traces and LangGraph/LLMCompiler applications show that Revise matches a latest‑version oracle, reduces model calls by up to 56%, and improves service‑level objective goodput under load.

By Ruoling Qi, Xuaner Wu, Penghang Liu, Jian Chen, Yirui Liu