RECLAIM: Can Agents Reproduce the Claims of Machine Learning Papers?
On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Web, search, and research agents also fits: Software engineering coding agents
Abstract (arXiv)
Reproducing a machine learning paper involves most research steps, from installing software and debugging to running experiments, work that AI agents increasingly do. We introduce RECLAIM, a benchmark of 100 NeurIPS 2025 papers that can be rebuilt yearly from new conferences. For each paper we fix in advance the result to reproduce, what counts as a successful reproduction, and a GPU-hour budget. An agent must reproduce that result using the paper and whatever its authors released. What the authors released decides the difficulty tier. Run-tier releases include code, data, and weights; Retrain-tier releases lack weights, so the agent trains the model; Reimplement-tier releases lack code, so the agent writes it. A separate language model grades runs from logs and outputs rather than agents' reports. We run four agents once per paper; the best agent in each tier reproduces only 41% of Run-tier papers, 27% at Retrain, and 15% at Reimplement, where every agent does worst. Failed attempts use on average 29% of their budget, so most stop with budget left. The most common agent error is writing the method without checking any part against the paper's numbers, in 63 of 400 runs.
Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Web, search, and research agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 197 of its 242 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 23 Sep 2026.
Builds on
197 of 242 references.
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