# ATANT: An Evaluation Framework for AI Continuity

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.06710 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.06710/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 7 of its 7 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 8 Apr 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 7 of 7)

- [MemGPT: Towards LLMs as Operating Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.08560/) (2023)
- [A-MEM: Agentic Memory for LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.12110/) (2025)
- [Mem0: Building Production-Ready AI Agents with Scalable Long-Term Memory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.19413/) (2025)
- [MemoryBench: A Benchmark for Memory and Continual Learning in LLM Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.17281/) (2025)
- [Beyond a Million Tokens: Benchmarking and Enhancing Long-Term Memory in LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.27246/) (2025)
- [The Narrative Continuity Test: A Conceptual Framework for Evaluating Identity Persistence in AI Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.24831/) (2025)
- [Continuum Memory Architectures for Long-Horizon LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.09913/) (2026)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [ATANT v1.1: Positioning Continuity Evaluation Against Memory, Long-Context, and Agentic-Memory Benchmarks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.10981/) (2026)
- [The Continuity Layer: Why Intelligence Needs an Architecture for What It Carries Forward](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.17273/) (2026)
- [TAGGRAPH: Tag-Augmented Graphs for Graph Retrieval of Agent Persistent Histories](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.38353/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We present ATANT (Automated Test for Acceptance of Narrative Truth), an open evaluation framework for measuring continuity in AI systems: the ability to persist, update, disambiguate, and reconstruct meaningful context across time. While the AI industry has produced memory components (RAG pipelines, vector databases, long context windows, profile layers), no published framework formally defines or measures whether these components produce genuine continuity. We define continuity as a system property with 7 required properties, introduce a 10-checkpoint evaluation methodology that operates without an LLM in the evaluation loop, and present a narrative test corpus of 250 stories comprising 1,835 verification questions across 6 life domains. We evaluate a reference implementation across 5 test suite iterations, progressing from 58% (legacy architecture) to 100% in isolated mode (250 stories) and 100% in 50-story cumulative mode, with 96% at 250-story cumulative scale. The cumulative result is the primary measure: when 250 distinct life narratives coexist in the same database, the system must retrieve the correct fact for the correct context without cross-contamination. ATANT is system-agnostic, model-independent, and designed as a sequenced methodology for building and validating continuity systems. The framework specification, example stories, and evaluation protocol are available at https://github.com/Kenotic-Labs/ATANT. The full 250-story corpus will be released incrementally.