{
  "id": 8426435,
  "title": "Don't Average Pass Rates Across Unequal Token Budgets",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/19/dont-average-pass-rates-across-unequal-token-budgets",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-09-19T09:10:54.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Dev.to",
    "slug": "dev-to",
    "url": "https://dev.to/byteio_501/dont-average-pass-rates-across-unequal-token-budgets-1kcf"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Don't average pass rates across unequal token budgets. A pass rate only indicates if tests completed successfully, without revealing token usage or budget constraints. Comparing agents with different budget allowances fails to provide a true benchmark. The article proposes a protocol to record detailed metrics like pass rate, truncation rate, and tokens-per-success, rather than relying on a single percentage metric. It emphasizes the importance of declaring budgets upfront, logging every attempt, and publishing three key numbers together to accurately compare agents.",
  "summary": "You taped two terminal panes to a Friday review. The left pane showed Agent A with eight greens; the right pane showed Agent B with six. Someone asked which one to keep. You almost said A. Then you scrolled the traces. Agent A retried until the cap cried. Agent B stopped after one compile and one test run. Same tasks. Different permission to spend. The ranking was a poster, not a measurement. A…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}