mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

ToMAS: A Pilot Failure-Grounded Theory-of-Mind Benchmark from Multi-Agent LLM Failures

arXiv 2609.16986 ↗First posted 15 Sep 2026cs.MAcited by 0

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

Abstract (arXiv)

LLM-based multi-agent systems can fail even when communication succeeds because agents do not correctly track their peers' roles, knowledge, or intentions. We investigate whether such inter-agent misalignment cases, labelled FC2 in MAST-Data, can be converted into functional partner-state reasoning items. ToMAS applies four explicit convertibility criteria to diagnosed execution traces. A full conversion pass over 242 eligible non-AG2 training traces produced 39 CLEAN items. In an 18-trace reliability pilot, two annotators achieved 94.4% raw agreement and Cohen's kappa = 0.92. We then used the converted items as binary rewards in a small-scale GRPO feasibility experiment with Qwen2.5-1.5B. On a 28-item held-out Magentic GAIA diagnostic, every evaluated condition exceeded the ROUGE-L threshold on the same 2 of 28 items. Post-hoc adapter checks show why: under the learning rate used, the LoRA update remained numerically negligible (max abs Delta W about 7e-6), so all conditions decode identically to the untrained checkpoint. The experiment therefore does not show a training effect and cannot establish one; it reports an executable pipeline together with two limitations that any conclusive study must address: a provenance gap between the training and evaluation items, and lexical-overlap scoring. ToMAS provides a preliminary rubric and pipeline for converting diagnosed coordination failures into trainable partner-state reasoning items and identifies the requirements for a conclusive matched-domain evaluation.

Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Software engineering coding agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 16 of its 21 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 15 Sep 2026.

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16 of 21 references.

Closest ancestors · 5

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2026MAS-FIRE: Fault Injection and Reliability Evaluation for LLM-Based Multi-Agent Systems23 Feb
  2. 2025Why Do Multi-Agent LLM Systems Fail?17 Mar
  3. 2024Agentless: Demystifying LLM-based Software Engineering Agents1 Jul
  4. 2023AutoGen: Enabling Next-Gen LLM Applications via Multi-Agent Conversation16 Aug
  5. 2023ChatDev: Communicative Agents for Software Development16 Jul

Other references · 11

  1. 2025DAPO: An Open-Source LLM Reinforcement Learning System at Scalecited by 2,810
  2. 2023MetaGPT: Meta Programming for A Multi-Agent Collaborative Frameworkcited by 1,808
  3. 2024Magentic-One: A Generalist Multi-Agent System for Solving Complex Taskscited by 232
  4. 2024AI Agents That Mattercited by 219
  5. 2023LLM-Coordination: Evaluating and Analyzing Multi-agent Coordination Abilities in Large Language Modelscited by 68
  6. 2026Silo-Bench: A Scalable Environment for Evaluating Distributed Coordination in Multi-Agent LLM Systemscited by 20
  7. 2026More Capable, Less Cooperative? When LLMs Fail At Zero-Cost Collaborationcited by 7
  8. 2026LangMARL: Natural Language Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learningcited by 4
  9. 2026EnactToM: An Evolving Benchmark for Functional Theory of Mind in Embodied Agentscited by 3
  10. 2026Do Agent Societies Develop Intellectual Elites? The Hidden Power Laws of Collective Cognition in LLM Multi-Agent Systemscited by 2
  11. 2026MARO: Learning Stronger Reasoning from Social Interactioncited by 1

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