MANTRA: Synthesizing SMT-Validated Compliance Benchmarks for Tool-Using LLM Agents
On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Tool learning and function calling
Abstract (arXiv)
Tool-using large language model (LLM) agents are increasingly deployed in settings where their reliable behavior is governed by strict procedural manuals. Ensuring that such agents comply with the rules from these manuals is challenging, as they are typically written for humans in natural language while agent behavior manifests as an execution trace of tool calls. Existing evaluations of LLM agents rely on manually constructed benchmarks or LLM-based judges, which either do not scale or lack reliability for complex, long-horizon manuals. To overcome these limitations, we present MANTRA, a framework for automatically synthesizing machine-checkable compliance benchmarks from natural-language manuals and tool schemas. MANTRA independently generates (i) a symbolic world model capturing procedural dependencies, and (ii) a set of trace-level compliance checks for a given task, and validates their consistency using SMT solving. A structured repair loop resolves inconsistencies, requiring human intervention only as a fallback. %This yields benchmarks that are formally validated. Importantly, MANTRA supports arbitrary domains and long procedural manuals, and provides a tunable notion of task complexity which is utilized to automatically derive challenging tasks accompanying compliance checks. Using MANTRA, we build a new benchmark suite with 285 tasks across 6 domains scaling to 50+ page manuals with minimal human effort. Empirically, we show that the compliance checks are richer with stronger constraint enforcement compared to existing benchmarks. Additionally, the granularity of the checks can be used for debugging the agents' failure modes. These results demonstrate that combining automated benchmark generation with formally grounded validation methods enables scalable and reliable benchmarking of tool-using agents.
Key facts. Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Tool learning and function calling, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 14 of its 48 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 7 May 2026.
Builds on
14 of 48 references.
References · 14
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2 more
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Citing papers per year: 2026: 3.
3 papers.
- 2026When Retrieval Metrics Mislead: Measuring Policy Signal in Long-Horizon Tool-Use Agentscited by 0
- 2026AeroCopilotBench: A Two-Tier Benchmark for Evaluating LLM Agents as Aviation Copilots in an Interactive Virtual Cockpit Environmentcited by 0
- 2026Policy Loopholes in Agent Evaluation: When Policy Ambiguity Masquerades as Agent Errorcited by 0
- 2026Policy Loopholes in Agent Evaluation: When Policy Ambiguity Masquerades as Agent Error13 Sep 2026
- 2026AeroCopilotBench: A Two-Tier Benchmark for Evaluating LLM Agents as Aviation Copilots in an Interactive Virtual Cockpit Environment17 Aug 2026
- 2026When Retrieval Metrics Mislead: Measuring Policy Signal in Long-Horizon Tool-Use Agents22 Jun 2026
Similar, not cited
Close in wording, no citation either way
- 2026AgentLTL: A Trace-Verification Framework for Measuring, Enforcing, and Training Procedural Compliance in Tool-Using LLM Agents
- 2026Evaluating Implicit Regulatory Compliance in LLM Tool Invocation via Logic-Guided Synthesis
- 2026Solver-Aided Verification of Policy Compliance in Tool-Augmented LLM Agents
- 2026Verified Tool Calls Improve LLM Agent Reliability Under Non-Atomic Failures
- 2026Beyond Task Completion: Revealing Corrupt Success in LLM Agents through Procedure-Aware Evaluation
- 2026How Consistent Are LLM Agents? Measuring Behavioral Reproducibility in Multi-Step Tool-Calling Pipelines
- 2026AgentJudgeBench: A Multi-Difficulty Benchmark for Evaluating LLM Judges on Agentic Tool-Calling
- 2026AgentBoundary: Counterfactual Evaluation of Safety in Tool-Using LLM Agents