Use Hard Agent Examples Without Losing Typical Cases
Shashank Agarwal
Hard examples help expose weak behavior. A dataset made only from recent failures can also make a targeted fix look like a broad improvement.
Quick answer: Maintain identifiable groups for routine workflows, difficult boundaries and targeted regressions. Report their results separately and document how cases were selected. Use challenge sets to investigate a weakness; use a suitable representative sample when making claims about ordinary traffic.
Define what makes a case hard
For an illustrative shipping assistant, difficult cases might include a corrected address, an unavailable delivery window or a conflicting instruction. Each tests a specific responsibility.
“Hard” should not simply mean a long prompt. Record the constraint or ambiguity that makes the case useful. A complex scenario that has no agreed acceptance condition is not ready to become a reliable test.
Separate the groups
| Group | Main purpose |
|---|---|
| Routine workflows | Detect damage to supported everyday tasks |
| Boundary cases | Test clarification, abstention and permission limits |
| Targeted regressions | Confirm a particular failure stays addressed |
| Execution checks | Identify harness or integration failures |
These groups are an illustrative organization scheme. They do not imply a measured traffic distribution or a Noveum benchmark.
Test the side effect of a fix
Suppose a candidate asks for confirmation whenever an address appears. It may improve corrected-address cases while adding unnecessary questions to unambiguous requests.
Keep cases where confirmation is required and where an existing valid confirmation should suffice. Inspect whether the candidate follows the rule rather than applying a defensive behavior everywhere.
Resist a misleading overall rate
A hand-selected challenge set does not estimate production failure frequency. A frequently repeated failure fixture can dominate an average without reflecting how often users encounter it.
Preserve group sizes and selection rules in the report. If weights represent a traffic estimate, document the source and period. Otherwise describe them as evaluation design choices.
I'm Shashank Agarwal, founder and CEO of Noveum AI and creator of API.market. I recommend judging a candidate on the weakness it targets and the supported behavior it could disturb.
Use the first-dataset guide for coverage planning and the abstention guide for valid boundary behavior.
Follow my work on LinkedIn. Drafted with AI assistance.
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