TestJack: Should you trust the results in coding benchmarks? Agentic Coding Benchmarks Auditing via Evaluator Evolution
On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Software engineering coding agents
Abstract (arXiv)
Large language model (LLM) agents are rapidly reshaping software engineering, accompanied by an explosion of new code benchmarks. Yet nearly all existing benchmarks still rely on the same decades-old criterion: a solution is correct if it passes a fixed set of unit tests. Such tests are often insufficient: they check only part of what the task requires, so agents can reward hack them or silently miss required behavior while still passing every test. As a result, higher benchmark scores may partly reflect better adaptation to the evaluator rather than better problem solving. Existing works focus on static test augmentation: they strengthen each task's tests once, before any trial is seen, and thus overlook how real trials actually fail. We introduce TestJack, a scalable framework for evaluating patches beyond fixed tests. For each trial, TestJack generates tests targeting prompt requirements the patch may violate, retains only tests passed by the ground-truth patch, and re-examines any trial failures. Each confirmed failure is thus supported by a replayable test. To reduce evaluation cost, we also introduce a lightweight variant which audits a random sample of trials in depth and reuses the resulting tests across all trials for the same task. Across 6 frontier model backends and 5 benchmarks such as DeepSWE and SWE Marathon, we find that about 34.4% of the model trials currently judged correct violate the task requirements, lowering the overall resolution rate from 50.6% to 33.2%. Our results reveal a fundamental limitation of current coding-agent evaluation: as LLMs become better at optimizing against fixed evaluators, those evaluators themselves must become more adaptive.
Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Software engineering coding agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 23 of its 40 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 7 Oct 2026.
Builds on
23 of 40 references.
Closest ancestors · 2
Same direction, newest first
- 2026DeepSWE: Measuring Frontier Coding Agents on Original, Long-Horizon Engineering Tasks8 Jul
- 2025SWE-rebench: An Automated Pipeline for Task Collection and Decontaminated Evaluation of Software Engineering Agents26 May
Other references · 21
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- 2024Benchmark Data Contamination of Large Language Models: A Surveycited by 138
- 2022Holistic Evaluation of Language Modelscited by 115
- 2024SWE-Bench+: Enhanced Coding Benchmark for LLMscited by 95
- 2025SWE-bench Goes Live!cited by 74
9 more
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- 2026Ask or Assume? Uncertainty-Aware Clarification-Seeking in Coding Agentscited by 15
- 2026BenchGuard: Who Guards the Benchmarks? Automated Auditing of LLM Agent Benchmarkscited by 13
- 2026SWE-ABS: Adversarial Benchmark Strengthening Exposes Inflated Success Rates on Test-based Benchmarkcited by 11
- 2025Code Benchmarks Should Prioritize Rigor, Reliability, and Reproducibilitycited by 10
- 2026Automated Benchmark Auditing for AI Agents and Large Language Modelscited by 10
- 2026Underspecification does not imply Incoherence: The Risks of Semantic Collapse in Coding Modelscited by 1
- 2026Automated Transcript Analysis for Detecting Flaws in Agentic Benchmarkscited by 1
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