reliability2026-01-231 min read
Evaluation Harness for Agentic Workflows
Ship agents like software—regression tests for prompts, tools, policies, and routing decisions.
title: Evaluation Harness for Agentic Workflows
description: Ship agents like software—regression tests for prompts, tools, policies, and routing decisions.
date: 2026-01-23
tags: [reliability, observability, governance, testing]
Why evaluation is different for agents
Agents are multi-step, non-deterministic, and tool-dependent. That means your test harness needs:
- gold datasets (inputs + expected outcomes)
- replayable tool mocks
- policy snapshots (deny/allow)
- cost ceilings
A simple harness structure
Fixtures
- canonical inputs (with edge cases)
- tool responses (mocked)
- policy bundle versions
Assertions
- success criteria met
- no disallowed tools called
- cost stayed within budget
- output format validated (JSON schema)
Practical strategy
- run “smoke evals” on every change
- run “full evals” nightly
- record diffs in success rate and cost
Deliverable: an evaluation report
A single PDF/HTML export that procurement/security can read:
- pass/fail summaries
- top regressions
- policy deltas
- run examples with lineage
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