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This paper identifies a critical flaw in closed-loop agent debugging where simulator-grounded verifiers inadvertently leak target identities through their predicates, rendering optimization comparisons vacuous. The authors propose a "support-gated verification contract" that prioritizes evidence eligibility and non-revelation before allowing any component selector to be optimized. This structural shift ensures that solver improvements genuinely resolve ambiguity rather than merely certifying artifacts already disclosed by the verifier.
A Verifier Can Leak the Answer: Diagnosability Before Optimization in Closed-Loop Agent Debugging
arXiv:2610.00126v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Agent developers increasingly compare prompts, tools, policies, and diagnosis algorithms through simulator-grounded verifiers. A verifier can nevertheless make a solver comparison vacuous: if its probes or predicates encode the target identity, an exact optimizer may appear effective without resolving any genuine ambiguity. We report such a failure in an aggregate-trace debugger for a closed-loop decision agent. Exact minimum hitting set (MHS) and a propagation-aware greedy method returned identical supports in 12/12 development cases and the same planted-fault recovery in 9/12. A subsequent audit found that exact-anchor predicates produced the planted pair in 9/9 cases. After removing those anchors, overall planted-pair recovery was 8/9; hard-probe singleton pairs nevertheless matched the planted pair in 9/9, and no case retained a nonempty residual conflict family after propagation (0/9). The optimizer was correct, but the verifier had already disclosed the answer. We replace solver-first evaluation with a support-gated verification contract. A clean reference map must first show repeated component exposure; a matched reference/current gate must then establish comparable runtime evidence; only afterward may an independently calibrated signal rule return a detection. In a preregistered heldout comprising 1,440 cases and 21,600 partition rows, 55/72 regime-component units passed the reference gate, 54/55 passed the runtime gate, and stable false admission was 0/20 represented components with a one-sided exact 95% upper bound of 0.1391. Within admitted units, affected clean traffic predicted detection better than nominal fault-cell fraction. The main lesson is structural: verify evidence eligibility and non-revelation before optimizing the component selector. Otherwise a stronger solver can merely certify a stronger verifier artifact.
Abstract:Agent developers increasingly compare prompts, tools, policies, and diagnosis algorithms through simulator-grounded verifiers. A verifier can nevertheless make a solver comparison vacuous: if its probes or predicates encode the target identity, an exact optimizer may appear effective without resolving any genuine ambiguity. We report such a failure in an aggregate-trace debugger for a closed-loop decision agent. Exact minimum hitting set (MHS) and a propagation-aware greedy method returned identical supports in 12/12 development cases and the same planted-fault recovery in 9/12. A subsequent audit found that exact-anchor predicates produced the planted pair in 9/9 cases. After removing those anchors, overall planted-pair recovery was 8/9; hard-probe singleton pairs nevertheless matched the planted pair in 9/9, and no case retained a nonempty residual conflict family after propagation (0/9). The optimizer was correct, but the verifier had already disclosed the answer. We replace solver-first evaluation with a support-gated verification contract. A clean reference map must first show repeated component exposure; a matched reference/current gate must then establish comparable runtime evidence; only afterward may an independently calibrated signal rule return a detection. In a preregistered heldout comprising 1,440 cases and 21,600 partition rows, 55/72 regime-component units passed the reference gate, 54/55 passed the runtime gate, and stable false admission was 0/20 represented components with a one-sided exact 95% upper bound of 0.1391. Within admitted units, affected clean traffic predicted detection better than nominal fault-cell fraction. The main lesson is structural: verify evidence eligibility and non-revelation before optimizing the component selector. Otherwise a stronger solver can merely certify a stronger verifier artifact.
Submitted to Who Verifies the Agents? Toward Reliable Agent Development (NeurIPS 2026 workshop). 7 pages, 0 figures, 2 tables. The reproducibility artifact is linked in the paper
Cryptography and Security (cs.CR); Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI); Multiagent Systems (cs.MA)
arXiv:2610.00126 [cs.CR]
(or arXiv:2610.00126v1 [cs.CR] for this version)
Full text under the publisher's open licence · 301 words
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