Re-executing Coding-Agent Evaluations: Unchanged Decisions and Unresolved Policy Risk
On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Software engineering coding agents also fits: Agent skill learning and evolution
Abstract (arXiv)
Executable tests grade large language model (LLM) coding-agent patches for leaderboards, rewards and self-improvement. Two preregistered re-execution studies returned negative results. SWE-bench Pro v1's offline option rejected none of 59 accepted Go patches whose grading configuration changed. Their exploratory, unweighted upper confidence limit is 4.95% under candidate independence, leaving a 3% exposed-patch risk unresolved; the preregistered estimator uses inverse sampling-probability weights. An extension was inconclusive. In a selected stratum, a reconstructed module cache built from the reference solution's dependencies rejected accepted alternatives from four models that passed with their own dependencies. Re-executing 1,929 selected agent-version/task evaluations from the Darwin G"odel Machine's archive preserved best-agent selection and system-variant ranking, with search history and scores of evaluations not rerun fixed. Exploratory host, image and adapted-grader comparisons also preserved them. Seven of 23 disagreements with archived verdicts did not recur on a second host; rebuilt images changed 16 three-run majority verdicts (0.83%) under four-CPU execution. We provide an evidence-to-claim summary, lessons for grader audits and an anonymous replication package. These results concern accepted patches and fixed-history decisions; general policy safety and adaptive-learning robustness require broader evaluations.
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 25 of its 34 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 10 Oct 2026.
Builds on
25 of 34 references.
Closest ancestors · 9
Same direction, newest first
- 2026SWE-Bench Pro Verified: A Reliable Benchmark for Software Engineering Agents8 Sep
- 2026LEGO-RL: Harness-Native Reinforcement Learning for Coding Agents18 Aug
- 2026Engineering Reliable Coding Agents: Evaluating and Operating the System Around the Model14 Aug
- 2026KAT-Coder-V2.5 Technical Report6 Jul
- 2026SWE-rebench V2: Language-Agnostic SWE Task Collection at Scale27 Feb
- 2026SWE-MiniSandbox: Container-Free Reinforcement Learning for Building Software Engineering Agents11 Feb
- 2025Huxley-G"odel Machine: Human-Level Coding Agent Development by an Approximation of the Optimal Self-Improving Machine24 Oct
- 2025UTBoost: Rigorous Evaluation of Coding Agents on SWE-Bench10 Jun
- 2025SWE-rebench: An Automated Pipeline for Task Collection and Decontaminated Evaluation of Software Engineering Agents26 May
Other references · 16
- 2023SWE-bench: Can Language Models Resolve Real-World GitHub Issues?cited by 3,373
- 2025Darwin Godel Machine: Open-Ended Evolution of Self-Improving Agentscited by 356
- 2025SWE-Bench Pro: Can AI Agents Solve Long-Horizon Software Engineering Tasks?cited by 279
- 2025Multi-SWE-bench: A Multilingual Benchmark for Issue Resolvingcited by 171
- 2024SWE-Bench+: Enhanced Coding Benchmark for LLMscited by 99
- 2025Are "Solved Issues" in SWE-bench Really Solved Correctly? An Empirical Studycited by 49
- 2024GitBug-Java: A Reproducible Benchmark of Recent Java Bugscited by 14
- 2026Auditing Reward Hackability in Code RL Training Environmentscited by 5
- 2026The Implementation Lottery: Auditing Idea Reliability in Automated Researchcited by 5
- 2023GitBug-Actions: Building Reproducible Bug-Fix Benchmarks with GitHub Actionscited by 3
- 2026Probe to Generate: Program Variant-Guided Test Augmentation for Repository-Level Repair Benchmarkscited by 3
- 2026Where the Verifier Fails: A Category-Level Audit of Reward Signals in RLVRcited by 3
4 more
- 2026DeepSeek Elastic Compute (DSec): A Sandbox Infrastructure for Effective Agentic Training at Scalecited by 3
- 2026Understanding and Detecting Flaky Builds in GitHub Actionscited by 2
- 2022Flaky Test Sanitisation via On-the-Fly Assumption Inference for Tests with Network Dependenciescited by 1
- 2023The Effects of Computational Resources on Flaky Testscited by 1
Built on by
Not cited yet.
Similar, not cited
Close in wording, no citation either way
- 2026Coding Agents Have Converged: Why the SWE-bench Leaderboard Can No Longer Order Its Top Entries, and What to Measure Instead
- 2026Agent psychometrics: Task-level performance prediction in agentic coding benchmarks
- 2026"LLM Agent Performance" Is Not a Single Evaluation Target
- 2026AgentAtlas: Beyond Outcome Leaderboards for LLM Agents
- 2026Agent Evaluation Reliability: More Tasks Won't (Always) Fix An Agent Leaderboard
- 2026Identical Runs, Different Results: Benchmarking AI Coding Agents on Open-Weight Models
- 2026The Scaffold Effect in Coding Agents: Harness Choice as a Hidden Variable in Coding-Agent Evaluation
- 2026Don't Blame the Large Language Model: How Agent Harness Evolution Shapes Coding Agent Quality