MCPVerse: An Expansive, Real-World Benchmark for Agentic Tool Use
On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Tool learning and function calling
Abstract (arXiv)
Large Language Models (LLMs) are evolving from text generators into reasoning agents. This transition makes their ability to use external tools a critical capability. However, evaluating this skill presents a significant challenge. Existing benchmarks are often limited by their reliance on synthetic tools and severely constrained action spaces. To address these limitations, we introduce MCPVerse, an expansive, real-world benchmark for evaluating agentic tool use. MCPVerse integrates more than 550 real-world, executable tools to create an unprecedented action space exceeding 140k tokens, and employs outcome-based evaluation with real-time ground truth for time-sensitive tasks. We benchmarked the state-of-the-art LLMs across three modes (Oracle, Standard, and Max-Scale), revealing that while most models suffer performance degradation when confronted with larger tool sets, the agentic models, such as Claude-4-Sonnet, can effectively leverage expanded exploration spaces to improve accuracy. This finding not only exposes the limitations of state-of-the-art models in complex, real-world scenarios but also establishes MCPVerse as a critical benchmark for measuring and advancing agentic tool use capabilities.
Key facts. Cited by 16 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Tool learning and function calling, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 21 of its 35 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 22 Aug 2025.
Builds on
21 of 35 references.
Closest ancestors · 11
Same direction, newest first
- 2025MCP-RADAR: A Multi-Dimensional Benchmark for Evaluating Tool Use Capabilities in Large Language Models22 May
- 2025ACEBench: Who Wins the Match Point in Tool Usage?22 Jan
- 2025ComplexFuncBench: Exploring Multi-Step and Constrained Function Calling under Long-Context Scenario17 Jan
- 2024Efficient and Scalable Estimation of Tool Representations in Vector Space2 Sep
- 2024MetaTool: Facilitating Large Language Models to Master Tools with Meta-task Augmentation15 Jul
- 2023ToolLLM: Facilitating Large Language Models to Master 16000+ Real-world APIs31 Jul
- 2023ToolAlpaca: Generalized Tool Learning for Language Models with 3000 Simulated Cases8 Jun
- 2023Gorilla: Large Language Model Connected with Massive APIs24 May
- 2023ToolkenGPT: Augmenting Frozen Language Models with Massive Tools via Tool Embeddings19 May
- 2023API-Bank: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Tool-Augmented LLMs14 Apr
- 2023Toolformer: Language Models Can Teach Themselves to Use Tools9 Feb
Other references · 10
- 2022ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Modelscited by 8,695
- 2023Voyager: An Open-Ended Embodied Agent with Large Language Modelscited by 2,191
- 2024τ-bench: A Benchmark for Tool-Agent-User Interaction in Real-World Domainscited by 1,402
- 2023CAMEL: Communicative Agents for "Mind" Exploration of Large Language Model Societycited by 1,395
- 2023ViperGPT: Visual Inference via Python Execution for Reasoningcited by 603
- 2024ToolSandbox: A Stateful, Conversational, Interactive Evaluation Benchmark for LLM Tool Use Capabilitiescited by 295
- 2025OWL: Optimized Workforce Learning for General Multi-Agent Assistance in Real-World Task Automationcited by 131
- 2024Watch Every Step! LLM Agent Learning via Iterative Step-Level Process Refinementcited by 88
- 2024Middleware for LLMs: Tools Are Instrumental for Language Agents in Complex Environmentscited by 39
- 2024AutoFeedback: An LLM-based Framework for Efficient and Accurate API Request Generationcited by 3
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Citing papers per year: 2025: 3; 2026: 13.
16 papers.
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- 2026MCP-Atlas: A Large-Scale Benchmark for Tool-Use Competency with Real MCP Serverscited by 53
- 2026ClawsBench: Evaluating Capability and Safety of LLM Productivity Agents in Simulated Workspacescited by 33
- 2026AgentAbstain: Do LLM Agents Know When Not to Act?cited by 17
- 2025Impatient Users Confuse AI Agents: High-fidelity Simulations of Human Traits for Testing Agentscited by 10
- 2026Agentic Environment Engineering for Large Language Models: A Survey of Environment Modeling, Synthesis, Evaluation, and Applicationcited by 8
- 2025TheMCPCompany: Creating General-purpose Agents with Task-specific Toolscited by 4
- 2026MedMCP-Calc: Benchmarking LLMs for Realistic Medical Calculator Scenarios via MCP Integrationcited by 3
- 2026CUBE: A Standard for Unifying Agent Benchmarkscited by 2
- 2026Overwhelmed by Choice: Studying LLM Decision Making at Scalecited by 1
- 2025How Brittle is Agent Safety? Rethinking Agent Risk under Intent Concealment and Task Complexitycited by 0
- 2026A Matter of TASTE: Improving Coverage and Difficulty of Agent Benchmarkscited by 0
- 2026ToolAlignBench: Investigating Alignment Conflicts in Tool-Calling Enabled LLMscited by 0
4 more
- 2026DynamicMCPBench: A Trace-Grounded, Effect-Scored Benchmark for LLM Agents over Live MCP Serverscited by 0
- 2026Towards Robust Tool Use in Agents via Experience-Driven Adaptive Guidancecited by 0
- 2026Agent Seer: Synthesizing Scenarios from Specification Understandingcited by 0
- 2026Environments as Scaffold: Enriching Feedback to Bootstrap Self-Evolving Agents in Long-Horizon Taskscited by 0
- 2026Overwhelmed by Choice: Studying LLM Decision Making at Scale26 Sep 2026
- 2026Environments as Scaffold: Enriching Feedback to Bootstrap Self-Evolving Agents in Long-Horizon Tasks8 Sep 2026
- 2026Towards Robust Tool Use in Agents via Experience-Driven Adaptive Guidance4 Aug 2026
- 2026ToolAlignBench: Investigating Alignment Conflicts in Tool-Calling Enabled LLMs15 Jul 2026
- 2026AgentAbstain: Do LLM Agents Know When Not to Act?11 Jul 2026
- 2026DynamicMCPBench: A Trace-Grounded, Effect-Scored Benchmark for LLM Agents over Live MCP Servers10 Jul 2026
- 2026Agent Seer: Synthesizing Scenarios from Specification Understanding24 Jun 2026
- 2026Agentic Environment Engineering for Large Language Models: A Survey of Environment Modeling, Synthesis, Evaluation, and Application10 Jun 2026
- 2026A Matter of TASTE: Improving Coverage and Difficulty of Agent Benchmarks27 May 2026
- 2026ClawsBench: Evaluating Capability and Safety of LLM Productivity Agents in Simulated Workspaces6 Apr 2026
- 2026CUBE: A Standard for Unifying Agent Benchmarks16 Mar 2026
- 2026MCP-Atlas: A Large-Scale Benchmark for Tool-Use Competency with Real MCP Servers31 Jan 2026
4 more
- 2026MedMCP-Calc: Benchmarking LLMs for Realistic Medical Calculator Scenarios via MCP Integration30 Jan 2026
- 2025How Brittle is Agent Safety? Rethinking Agent Risk under Intent Concealment and Task Complexity11 Nov 2025
- 2025TheMCPCompany: Creating General-purpose Agents with Task-specific Tools22 Oct 2025
- 2025Impatient Users Confuse AI Agents: High-fidelity Simulations of Human Traits for Testing Agents6 Oct 2025
- 2026MCP-Atlas: A Large-Scale Benchmark for Tool-Use Competency with Real MCP Serverscited by 53
- 2026ClawsBench: Evaluating Capability and Safety of LLM Productivity Agents in Simulated Workspacescited by 33
- 2026AgentAbstain: Do LLM Agents Know When Not to Act?cited by 17
- 2026Agentic Environment Engineering for Large Language Models: A Survey of Environment Modeling, Synthesis, Evaluation, and Applicationcited by 8
- 2025TheMCPCompany: Creating General-purpose Agents with Task-specific Toolscited by 4
- 2025How Brittle is Agent Safety? Rethinking Agent Risk under Intent Concealment and Task Complexitycited by 0
- 2026A Matter of TASTE: Improving Coverage and Difficulty of Agent Benchmarkscited by 0
- 2026ToolAlignBench: Investigating Alignment Conflicts in Tool-Calling Enabled LLMscited by 0
- 2026DynamicMCPBench: A Trace-Grounded, Effect-Scored Benchmark for LLM Agents over Live MCP Serverscited by 0
- 2026Agent Seer: Synthesizing Scenarios from Specification Understandingcited by 0
- 2026Environments as Scaffold: Enriching Feedback to Bootstrap Self-Evolving Agents in Long-Horizon Taskscited by 0
- 2026Environments as Scaffold: Enriching Feedback to Bootstrap Self-Evolving Agents in Long-Horizon Tasks8 Sep 2026
- 2026ToolAlignBench: Investigating Alignment Conflicts in Tool-Calling Enabled LLMs15 Jul 2026
- 2026AgentAbstain: Do LLM Agents Know When Not to Act?11 Jul 2026
- 2026DynamicMCPBench: A Trace-Grounded, Effect-Scored Benchmark for LLM Agents over Live MCP Servers10 Jul 2026
- 2026Agent Seer: Synthesizing Scenarios from Specification Understanding24 Jun 2026
- 2026Agentic Environment Engineering for Large Language Models: A Survey of Environment Modeling, Synthesis, Evaluation, and Application10 Jun 2026
- 2026A Matter of TASTE: Improving Coverage and Difficulty of Agent Benchmarks27 May 2026
- 2026ClawsBench: Evaluating Capability and Safety of LLM Productivity Agents in Simulated Workspaces6 Apr 2026
- 2026MCP-Atlas: A Large-Scale Benchmark for Tool-Use Competency with Real MCP Servers31 Jan 2026
- 2025How Brittle is Agent Safety? Rethinking Agent Risk under Intent Concealment and Task Complexity11 Nov 2025
- 2025TheMCPCompany: Creating General-purpose Agents with Task-specific Tools22 Oct 2025
- 2026Overwhelmed by Choice: Studying LLM Decision Making at Scale26 Sep 2026
- 2025Impatient Users Confuse AI Agents: High-fidelity Simulations of Human Traits for Testing Agentscited by 10
- 2026MedMCP-Calc: Benchmarking LLMs for Realistic Medical Calculator Scenarios via MCP Integrationcited by 3
- 2026CUBE: A Standard for Unifying Agent Benchmarkscited by 2
- 2026Towards Robust Tool Use in Agents via Experience-Driven Adaptive Guidancecited by 0
- 2026Towards Robust Tool Use in Agents via Experience-Driven Adaptive Guidance4 Aug 2026
- 2026CUBE: A Standard for Unifying Agent Benchmarks16 Mar 2026
- 2026MedMCP-Calc: Benchmarking LLMs for Realistic Medical Calculator Scenarios via MCP Integration30 Jan 2026
- 2025Impatient Users Confuse AI Agents: High-fidelity Simulations of Human Traits for Testing Agents6 Oct 2025
Similar, not cited
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- 2025MCP-Bench: Benchmarking Tool-Using LLM Agents with Complex Real-World Tasks via MCP Servers
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- 2026AgentGym2: Benchmarking Large Language Model Agents in De-Idealized Real-World Environments
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- 2025MCP-Flow: Facilitating LLM Agents to Master Real-World, Diverse and Scaling MCP Tools
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