Freeze the Retry Budget Before the Percentage
A coding-agent pass rate without a published retry cap is an incomplete measurement rather than a fair comparison. Hidden extra attempts inflate success in the same quiet way extra minutes inflate a closed-book exam score. Honest reporting therefore treats retry policy, wall-clock limits, and tool-trace identity as first-class dataset fields. Scores that omit those fields should be read as…
The article argues that current methods of evaluating coding-agents in automated testing are incomplete and potentially misleading. It suggests that a more honest and controlled approach should be taken, where retry policy, wall-clock limits, and tool-trace identity are treated as first-class dataset fields. The author proposes a dataset schema that includes a unique task ID, frozen prompt template, hidden test digest, uneditable oracle command, max attempts, wall-clock limit, and other relevant metrics.
This approach would allow for more accurate comparisons between different coding-agents and their performance, rather than relying on a single percentage that may not accurately reflect the true capabilities of the system.
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