AI agent evaluation: trajectories, tools and authority
Evaluate AI agents beyond final output: planning, tool calls, state, cost, permissions, recovery and refusal.
An agent can reach a correct result through an unsafe, expensive or non-reconstructible trajectory.
Allowing the model to propose and authorize its own actions concentrates excessive authority in a probabilistic component.
Evaluation must cover the full trajectory and separate proposal, permission, execution and verification.
What the architecture must make explicit
Evaluating an AI system binds a capability, an exact object, a protocol, observations and a decision rule. An isolated score is not a qualification.
Move from a keyword to an inspectable engineering decision
Contract
Define required behavior, forbidden failures and thresholds before testing.
Separate
Keep search, confirmation, protected data and Fresh Final apart to prevent contamination.
Measure
Record outputs, metrics, failures, latency and measured-subject identity.
Adjudicate
Interpret observations without letting the candidate producer impose the verdict.
A claim is only as strong as its binding
The gate must evaluate the exact output produced by the exact realization. Integrity, scientific validity and authority are related, but never interchangeable.
Questions that change the design
What does ai agent evaluation: trajectories, tools and authority require?
An agent can reach a correct result through an unsafe, expensive or non-reconstructible trajectory. Evaluating an AI system binds a capability, an exact object, a protocol, observations and a decision rule. An isolated score is not a qualification.
Which evidence should be retained?
At minimum: exact realization identity, inputs and outputs, protocol version, measurements, failure cases and the decision rule. Evaluation must cover the full trajectory and separate proposal, permission, execution and verification.
Does AMF prescribe a particular model?
No. AMF treats the model, runtime, data, tools and deterministic components as candidate materials. Their retention depends on measured contribution and declared constraints.