mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Agent-Diff: Benchmarking LLM Agents on Enterprise API Tasks via Code Execution with State-Diff-Based Evaluation

arXiv 2602.11224 ↗First posted 11 Feb 2026cs.SE cs.CLcited by 12

On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Software engineering coding agents

Abstract (arXiv)

We present Agent-Diff, a novel benchmarking framework for evaluating agentic Large Language Models (LLMs) on real-world productivity software API tasks via code execution. Agentic LLM performance varies due to differences in models, external tool access, prompt structures, and agentic frameworks. Benchmarks must make fundamental trade-offs between a sandboxed approach that controls for variation in software environments and more ecologically valid approaches employing real services. Agent-Diff attempts to capture the desirable features of both of these approaches by including access to the real API interfaces for software services while sandboxing the environment in which calls are made, processed, and evaluated. This approach relies on two key innovations. The first is a novel state-diff contract, which separates process from outcome - rather than fuzzy trace or parameter matching, we define task success as whether the expected change in environment state was achieved. The second is a novel sandbox built on containerized replicas of enterprise APIs, allowing all models to interact with the same service interfaces through code execution. This enables controlled evaluation against a common set of state-diff contracts while preserving the structure of real-world API interaction. Using the Agent-Diff framework, we provide benchmarks for nine LLMs across 224 tasks utilizing enterprise software workflows. In addition, we evaluate the robustness of the framework with ablation experiments to assess the contribution of access to API documentation on benchmark performance. Code and data: https://github.com/agent-diff-bench/agent-diff.

Key facts. Cited by 12 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Software engineering coding agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 8 of its 71 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 11 Feb 2026.

Builds on

8 of 71 references.

References · 8

  1. 2024τ-bench: A Benchmark for Tool-Agent-User Interaction in Real-World Domainscited by 1,280
  2. 2026Terminal-Bench: Benchmarking Agents on Hard, Realistic Tasks in Command Line Interfacescited by 515
  3. 2025SWE-Bench Pro: Can AI Agents Solve Long-Horizon Software Engineering Tasks?cited by 254
  4. 2024The Landscape of Emerging AI Agent Architectures for Reasoning, Planning, and Tool Calling: A Surveycited by 164
  5. 2025MCP-Bench: Benchmarking Tool-Using LLM Agents with Complex Real-World Tasks via MCP Serverscited by 101
  6. 2025MCP-Universe: Benchmarking Large Language Models with Real-World Model Context Protocol Serverscited by 89
  7. 2025Towards Reliable Benchmarking: A Contamination Free, Controllable Evaluation Framework for Multi-step LLM Function Callingcited by 13
  8. 2025A Framework for Testing and Adapting REST APIs as LLM Toolscited by 9

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 12.

12 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026E-Bench: Benchmarking Multi-Step Tool-Use Agents in Real-World Product Scenarios
  2. 2025LoCoBench-Agent: An Interactive Benchmark for LLM Agents in Long-Context Software Engineering
  3. 2025SWE-Compass: Towards Unified Evaluation of Agentic Coding Abilities for Large Language Models
  4. 2026Benchmarks are Not Enough: RAMP for Runtime Assessing of Agentic Models in Production Systems
  5. 2025A Comprehensive Survey on Benchmarks and Solutions in Software Engineering of LLM-Empowered Agentic System
  6. 2026Beyond Perfect APIs: A Comprehensive Evaluation of LLM Agents Under Real-World API Complexity
  7. 2025Software Development Life Cycle Perspective: A Survey of Benchmarks for Code Large Language Models and Agents
  8. 2026BackendForge: Benchmarking Agentic End-to-End Code Generation with Backend Services