StepFinder: A Temporal Semantic Framework for Failure Attribution in Multi-Agent Systems
arXiv:2606. 03467v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: LLM-based multi-agent systems exhibit remarkable collaborative capabilities in complex multi-step tasks.
ReCast is a new method for learning step representations in large language model (LLM) based agent systems, aimed at improving failure attribution by transforming hidden states into attribution‑oriented representations. The approach selects relevant layers, builds pattern and deviation features, and trains an encoder with contrastive and ranking objectives. In experiments on four benchmarks, ReCast outperforms the strongest baseline, achieving higher Hit@1 scores on the Who&When Algorithm and Handcrafted datasets.
arXiv:2606. 03467v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: LLM-based multi-agent systems exhibit remarkable collaborative capabilities in complex multi-step tasks.
arXiv:2607. 12747v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Failure attribution for LLM-based agentic systems, i.
The paper introduces SOAP, a method for attributing failures in large language model agents without requiring step-level labels or a separate set of successful trajectories. SOAP builds a spectral reference space from LLM representations to assign base error scores to each step, then uses attention-based soft dependencies to propagate downstream error signals back to their likely upstream causes. Experiments demonstrate that SOAP outperforms existing baselines in accurately identifying decisive steps responsible for task failures.
arXiv:2608.29646v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Large language model (LLM)-based agents have shown strong potential in solving complex tasks through multi-step reasoning, yet they remain vulnerable t...
The paper introduces DCFA, a training‑free framework for attributing failures in large language model‑based multi‑agent systems. DCFA uses a global module to build causal‑inspired dependency graphs from system traces, pinpointing the earliest decisive error, and a local module that refines this attribution through counterfactual reasoning. Experiments on the Who&When benchmark across six LLMs demonstrate that DCFA improves step‑level accuracy by up to 8.27% over existing baselines.
arXiv:2606. 00765v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: LLM-based agents increasingly solve complex tasks through long trajectories involving reasoning steps, tool calls, and inter-agent communication.
The paper introduces EMFA, a method for attributing failures in large language model-based multi-agent systems by identifying the decisive error—an agent–step pair whose correction would restore correct execution. EMFA builds a structured representation of the failed trajectory, models error propagation and persistent loops, and applies propagation-aware screening with counterfactual verification to pinpoint the decisive error. On the Who&When benchmark, EMFA outperforms prior methods, improving step-level attribution accuracy by 3.45 and 4.40 percentage points on two subsets.
The paper introduces EMFA, a method for pinpointing the decisive error in large‑language‑model‑based multi‑agent systems. EMFA builds a structured representation of a failed execution, models how errors cascade and loop, and then screens candidates with propagation awareness before verifying them counterfactually. On the Who&When benchmark, EMFA outperforms prior methods, improving step‑level attribution accuracy by 3.45 and 4.40 percentage points on two subsets.
DeFA is a dependency-guided framework that attributes failures in large language model agents by constructing an event dependency graph and a failure propagation graph from protocol relations and semantic dependencies. It identifies violating events, traces their sources and effects, and determines the decisive error, responsible agent, and error category. The method supports long trajectories through segmentation and has shown superior accuracy on text, image, and video tasks, while its diagnostic feedback can improve agent performance on subsequent tasks.
arXiv:2606. 09071v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Large language model (LLM) agents now solve complex tasks through long plan-and-execution traces, yet the ability to locate errors in a completed traces still lags far behind, especially in the \emph{silent failure} regime.
The paper introduces Trace, a framework that transforms sparse-reward trajectories into executable walkthroughs by identifying progress anchors, propagating credit, and estimating action prerequisites. Trace compiles noisy trajectories into state‑conditioned, verifiable procedures that remove loops and detours, enabling reuse, intermediate‑state resumption, and programmatic verification. Experiments on J‑TTL, WebShop, and ScienceWorld with three open‑source LLMs show that Trace outperforms eight baselines, improving average AUC and Final‑$3$ by 30.0% and 40.5% while using fewer inference tokens.
arXiv:2607. 22610v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: When a language model produces a response in a multi-turn conversation, which tokens from prior turns shaped that answer, and how did those dependencies propagate across prior turns?