triage-agent-eval-failures

Agent Building

Triage failing @novu/agent-evals scenarios to decide whether a failure is real or flaky, and whether to fix the playbook/prompt or the test (grader, tape, scenario, or judge). Use when an agent-evals scenario fails, when the user asks why an eval is red, or when deciding whether to fix the test or the prompt.

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Triage Agent Eval Failures

Diagnose a failing scenario in libs/agent-evals and produce a verdict: is the failure real (the playbook under test regressed) or is the test wrong (grader / tape / scenario / judge), or is it just flaky (model non-determinism)?

The thing under test is the playbook doc (packages/shared/docs/agent-onboarding.md), injected as the agent system prompt. Everything else (graders.ts, catalog.ts, scenario.ts, judge prompts) is test scaffolding. Never fix the playbook to satisfy a broken grader, and never loosen a grader to hide a real playbook regression.

Rule 0: rule out flakiness before changing anything

Scenarios run a live model concurrently, so one red run is one sample, not a verdict. Re-run the single failing scenario 3–5× first:

pnpm --filter @novu/agent-evals exec vitest run --config vitest.evals.config.ts -t <scenario-id>

Fails every run → deterministic failure, continue triage.
Fails intermittently → flaky. The cause is usually a non-deterministic judge grader or an over-strict regex. Do not edit the playbook. Tighten the grader/judge prompt or accept variance; consider pass@k rather than single-run gating.

To reproduce judge graders locally:

pnpm --filter @novu/agent-evals exec vitest run --config vitest.evals.config.ts -t <scenario-id>

Step 1: identify which grader failed and its kind

Each scenario registers graders in scenarios/<id>/graders.ts. The kind is the strongest triage signal:

Deterministic graders (catalog.*, contains, matches) inspect the structured RunResult. A fail means the agent's actions/output objectively did not match — or the check is too strict.
Judge graders (sharedJudgeGraders, judge(...)) call a second LLM pass. A fail is fuzzy and can be the judge prompt's fault, not the agent's.

Find the grader's logic:

Layer	Location
Per-scenario grader wiring	`src/suites/agent-onboarding/scenarios/<id>/graders.ts`
Deterministic grader bodies	`src/suites/agent-onboarding/catalog.ts` (`catalog` object)
Judge prompts	`catalog.ts` (`judgePrompts`) + `sharedJudgeGraders`
Generic helpers	`src/core/graders.ts` (`contains`, `matches`, `toolCallsNamed`, `transcriptText`)
Judge mechanics	`src/core/judge.ts` (returns `skip` on `UNKNOWN`)

Step 2: read the RunResult evidence

Graders read fields off RunResult (src/core/types.ts). Map the failing grader to the field it checks and compare against what the agent actually did in the run output:

trackedCommands — raw connect command strings (flag checks like --keyless, --secret-key, --slack-config-token).
toolCalls — every Bash / BashOutput / AskUserQuestion / Read call with args (run_in_background, file_path, picker selectedId).
polledShellIds / killedShellIds — background-polling and kill behavior.
capturedUrls / openedFiles — surfaced URLs and opened files (e.g. QR .png, auth-url file).
finalText / assistantMessages — user-facing report (transcriptText joins these).
metadata.description — the drafted agent description (persona / infra-token graders).

Step 3: classify the failure

Walk top-down and stop at the first match:

Symptom	Verdict	Fix target
Agent never ran the tracked command / ignored an instruction it should follow	Real — discovery	Playbook `agent-onboarding.md` (instruction unclear/missing)
Deterministic grader fails and the `RunResult` confirms the agent genuinely did the wrong thing	Real — execution	Playbook `agent-onboarding.md`
Deterministic grader fails but `RunResult` shows the agent behaved correctly (regex too strict, wrong field, valid variant rejected)	Test bug	`catalog.ts` grader logic
Fails only on the scripted CLI path; tape stdout/`when`/`validate` or scripted answers are wrong or stale	Test bug	`scenario.ts` (`tape`, `scriptedAnswers`), `connect-parser.ts`
Judge grader fails but the description/report actually satisfies the criterion	Test bug	Judge prompt in `catalog.ts` (`judgePrompts`)
Judge verdict flips run-to-run	Flaky judge	Sharpen judge prompt; rely on `UNKNOWN`→`skip` escape hatch
Passes sometimes, fails sometimes, no clear cause	Flaky	Do not edit playbook; re-run (Rule 0)

A scenario passes only when every active grader averages ≥ 0.8 (JUDGE_THRESHOLD). A judge returning UNKNOWN becomes skip and scores 1 — it never causes a fail, so an UNKNOWN is not evidence of a real regression.

Step 4: apply one bounded fix, then verify

Change only the layer the verdict points to — playbook or test, never both to chase green.
Re-run the single scenario (Step 0 command).
Confirm the fix holds across the 3–5 re-runs and that no other scenario regressed.
If editing a deterministic grader, also run the synthetic unit tests so you don't break grader contracts:

pnpm --filter @novu/agent-evals test

Output format

Report the verdict concisely with cited evidence:

Scenario: <id>
Failing grader: <name> (deterministic | judge)
Re-run result: <N/M failed> → real | flaky
Evidence: <RunResult field + actual vs expected>
Verdict: real playbook regression | test bug (<grader|tape|scenario|judge>) | flaky
Fix target: <file path>  (or: no change — flaky/UNKNOWN)

Additional resources

For worked triage examples (real regression vs test bug vs flaky judge), see reference.md.