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Research note

Evaluating agents beyond the happy path

A source-led field note on tasks, trials, graders, traces, harnesses, and failure conditions.

Public label
Published research note
Source state
owner-approved
Maturity
prototype
Reviewed
2026-07-11
Source cutoff
2026-07-11

Working conclusion

TL;DR

A useful evaluation connects the task, repeated trials, grading logic, execution trace, harness conditions, and known failure modes.

How this note was formed

Methodology

LucyAI compared the vocabulary and boundaries in the cited vendor guidance and voluntary government profile, then separated source-supported practice from editorial interpretation.

From reading to action

Decision guide

Decision guide
Decision questionWorking guidance
What is being evaluated?Name the task, environment, authority, and expected observable behavior.
How will failure remain inspectable?Retain the minimum trace needed to connect action, result, and grader decision.

Claim boundaries

Claim ledger

  • analysis

    Agent evaluation should examine task definition, trials, graders, traces, harness behavior, and failure conditions together.

    Editorial synthesis of cited sources; not a LucyAI experiment or benchmark.

Trace the reasoning

Evidence flow

  1. Source

    3 cited source records

  2. Boundary

    Editorial analysis of cited primary and official sources; not a LucyAI experiment or benchmark.

  3. Analysis

    LucyAI compared the vocabulary and boundaries in the cited vendor guidance and voluntary government profile, then separated source-supported practice from editorial interpretation.

  4. Decision

    Understand how to scope an inspectable agent evaluation.

What remains bounded

Risks and open questions

Risks

  • A narrow task set can hide important failure conditions.
  • A grader can reward plausible output without testing the intended behavior.
  • A harness can change what the evaluation appears to measure.

Open questions

  • Which failures matter enough to become release gates?
  • Which traces are necessary for diagnosis without collecting unrelated data?

Source register

Citations

  1. Building effective agents

    Workflow and agent-design practice

    Evidence class
    vendor-first-party
    Published
    2024-12-19
    Boundary
    Vendor first-party engineering guidance.
  2. Demystifying evals for AI agents

    Task, trial, grader, trace, and harness vocabulary

    Evidence class
    vendor-first-party
    Published
    2026-01-09
    Boundary
    Vendor first-party practice; no universal or LucyAI-result claim.
  3. NIST Generative AI Profile

    Voluntary risk and measurement context

    Evidence class
    government-guidance
    Published
    2024-07-26
    Boundary
    Voluntary government guidance; not law, certification, or proof of conformance.

Apply the question

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