← Saturday, October 17, 2026AgentsGuide

Agent evaluations should grade execution steps, not just final answers

cloud.google.com by Casey West 6 min read Editor score 8/10

An initial 11-prompt evaluation found that judging only the agent’s final text missed whether it had actually executed the right steps. Evaluating actions as well as answers helps catch silent tool-use failures in production agents.

What
Agent evaluation should score execution steps, not only final answers, because an agent can do the required work without describing it in its reply.
How
Flattening telemetry can hide concurrent tool calls and turn structure, including cases where skill instructions arrive after searches have already run.
Why it matters
Preserving raw tool-call trajectories and turn structure helps engineers verify actions and diagnose agent behavior.

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