# AppWorld: A Controllable World of Apps and People for Benchmarking Interactive Coding Agents

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.18901 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.18901/

## Key facts

- Cited by 401 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Software engineering coding agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use.
- Builds on 3 of its 45 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 26 Jul 2024.

## Placed in

- LLM agents and tool use / [Software engineering coding agents](https://mlsanity.com/agents/software-engineering-coding-agents/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [GPQA: A Graduate-Level Google-Proof Q&A Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.12022/) (2023)
- [MMInA: Benchmarking Multihop Multimodal Internet Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.09992/) (2024)
- [Benchmarking Mobile Device Control Agents across Diverse Configurations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.16660/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 401)

- [Why Do Multi-Agent LLM Systems Fail?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.13657/) (2025)
- [Group-in-Group Policy Optimization for LLM Agent Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.10978/) (2025)
- [LLMs-as-Judges: A Comprehensive Survey on LLM-based Evaluation Methods](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.05579/) (2024)
- [Agentic Context Engineering: Evolving Contexts for Self-Improving Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.04618/) (2025)
- [TheAgentCompany: Benchmarking LLM Agents on Consequential Real World Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.14161/) (2024)
- [SkillsBench: Benchmarking How Well Agent Skills Work Across Diverse Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.12670/) (2026)
- [Survey on Evaluation of LLM-based Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.16416/) (2025)
- [From LLM Reasoning to Autonomous AI Agents: A Comprehensive Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.19678/) (2025)
- [MemSkill: Learning and Evolving Memory Skills for Self-Evolving Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.02474/) (2026)
- [OWL: Optimized Workforce Learning for General Multi-Agent Assistance in Real-World Task Automation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.23885/) (2025)
- [MLGym: A New Framework and Benchmark for Advancing AI Research Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.14499/) (2025)
- [Self-Harness: Harnesses That Improve Themselves](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.09498/) (2026)
- [Unveiling Privacy Risks in LLM Agent Memory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.13172/) (2025)
- [Reinforcement Learning for Self-Improving Agent with Skill Library](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.17102/) (2025)
- [MCP-Universe: Benchmarking Large Language Models with Real-World Model Context Protocol Servers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.14704/) (2025)
- [Skill-SD: Skill-Conditioned Self-Distillation for Multi-turn LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.10674/) (2026)
- [Agent Learning via Early Experience](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.08558/) (2025)
- [The Tool Decathlon: Benchmarking Language Agents for Diverse, Realistic, and Long-Horizon Task Execution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.25726/) (2025)
- [Beyond Browsing: API-Based Web Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.16464/) (2024)
- [SkillX: Automatically Constructing Skill Knowledge Bases for Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.04804/) (2026)
- [Remember Me, Refine Me: A Dynamic Procedural Memory Framework for Experience-Driven Agent Evolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.10696/) (2025)
- [Self-Challenging Language Model Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.01716/) (2025)
- [lmgame-Bench: How Good are LLMs at Playing Games?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.15146/) (2025)
- [Continuum: Efficient and Robust Multi-Turn LLM Agent Scheduling with KV Cache Time-to-Live](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.02230/) (2025)
- [Vibe Coding vs. Agentic Coding: Fundamentals and Practical Implications of Agentic AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.19443/) (2025)
- [Large Language Models for Planning: A Comprehensive and Systematic Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.19683/) (2025)
- [OSWorld 2.0: Benchmarking Computer Use Agents on Long-Horizon Real-World Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.29537/) (2026)
- [AIRS-Bench: a Suite of Tasks for Frontier AI Research Science Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.06855/) (2026)
- [WildClawBench: A Benchmark for Real-World, Long-Horizon Agent Evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.10912/) (2026)
- [Gaia2: Benchmarking LLM Agents on Dynamic and Asynchronous Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.11964/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Autonomous agents that address day-to-day digital tasks (e.g., ordering groceries for a household), must not only operate multiple apps (e.g., notes, messaging, shopping app) via APIs, but also generate rich code with complex control flow in an iterative manner based on their interaction with the environment. However, existing benchmarks for tool use are inadequate, as they only cover tasks that require a simple sequence of API calls. To remedy this gap, we built AppWorld Engine, a high-quality execution environment (60K lines of code) of 9 day-to-day apps operable via 457 APIs and populated with realistic digital activities simulating the lives of ~100 fictitious users. We then created AppWorld Benchmark (40K lines of code), a suite of 750 natural, diverse, and challenging autonomous agent tasks requiring rich and interactive code generation. It supports robust programmatic evaluation with state-based unit tests, allowing for different ways of completing a task while also checking for unexpected changes, i.e., collateral damage. The state-of-the-art LLM, GPT-4o, solves only ~49% of our 'normal' tasks and ~30% of 'challenge' tasks, while other models solve at least 16% fewer. This highlights the benchmark's difficulty and AppWorld's potential to push the frontiers of interactive coding agents. The project website is available at https://appworld.dev/.