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VeRO: An Evaluation Harness for Agents to Optimize Agents

Varun Ursekar, Apaar Shanker, Veronica Chatrath, Yuan, Xue, Sam Denton · Feb 25, 2026 · Citations: 0

Automatic Metrics
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How to use this page

Low trust

Use this as background context only. Do not make protocol decisions from this page alone.

Best use

Background context only

What to verify

Validate the evaluation procedure and quality controls in the full paper before operational use.

Evidence quality

Low

Derived from extracted protocol signals and abstract evidence.

Abstract

An important emerging application of coding agents is agent optimization: the iterative improvement of a target agent through edit-execute-evaluate cycles. Despite its relevance, the community lacks a systematic understanding of coding agent performance on this task. Agent optimization differs fundamentally from conventional software engineering: the target agent interleaves deterministic code with stochastic LLM completions, requiring structured capture of both intermediate reasoning and downstream execution outcomes. To address these challenges, we introduce VERO (Versioning, Rewards, and Observations), which provides (1) a reproducible evaluation harness with versioned agent snapshots, budget-controlled evaluation, and structured execution traces, and (2) a benchmark suite of target agents and tasks with reference evaluation procedures. Using VERO, we conduct an empirical study comparing optimizer configurations across tasks and analyzing which modifications reliably improve target agent performance. We release VERO to support research on agent optimization as a core capability for coding agents.

Abstract-only analysis — low confidence

All signals on this page are inferred from the abstract only and may be inaccurate. Do not use this page as a primary protocol reference.

  • This paper looks adjacent to evaluation work, but not like a strong protocol reference.
  • The available metadata is too thin to trust this as a primary source.
Human Eval Hub LLM-as-Judge Hub Pairwise Preference Hub

Should You Rely On This Paper?

This paper is adjacent to HFEPX scope and is best used for background context, not as a primary protocol reference.

Best use

Background context only

Use if you need

A secondary eval reference to pair with stronger protocol papers.

Main weakness

This paper looks adjacent to evaluation work, but not like a strong protocol reference.

Trust level

Low

Usefulness score

0/100 • Low

Treat as adjacent context, not a core eval-method reference.

Human Feedback Signal

Not explicit in abstract metadata

Evaluation Signal

Detected

Usefulness for eval research

Adjacent candidate

Extraction confidence 35%

If you are doing eval pipeline work, start here:

Human Eval Hub LLM-as-Judge Hub Pairwise Preference Hub Tool-Use Eval Hub

What We Could Verify

These are the protocol signals we could actually recover from the available paper metadata. Use them to decide whether this paper is worth deeper reading.

Human Feedback Types

missing

None explicit

No explicit feedback protocol extracted.

"An important emerging application of coding agents is agent optimization: the iterative improvement of a target agent through edit-execute-evaluate cycles."

Evaluation Modes

partial

Automatic Metrics

Includes extracted eval setup.

"An important emerging application of coding agents is agent optimization: the iterative improvement of a target agent through edit-execute-evaluate cycles."

Quality Controls

missing

Not reported

No explicit QC controls found.

"An important emerging application of coding agents is agent optimization: the iterative improvement of a target agent through edit-execute-evaluate cycles."

Benchmarks / Datasets

missing

Not extracted

No benchmark anchors detected.

"An important emerging application of coding agents is agent optimization: the iterative improvement of a target agent through edit-execute-evaluate cycles."

Reported Metrics

partial

Relevance

Useful for evaluation criteria comparison.

"Despite its relevance, the community lacks a systematic understanding of coding agent performance on this task."

Human Feedback Details

  • Uses human feedback: No
  • Feedback types: None
  • Rater population: Not reported
  • Expertise required: Coding

Evaluation Details

  • Evaluation modes: Automatic Metrics
  • Agentic eval: None
  • Quality controls: Not reported
  • Evidence quality: Low
  • Use this page as: Background context only

Protocol And Measurement Signals

Benchmarks / Datasets

No benchmark or dataset names were extracted from the available abstract.

Reported Metrics

relevance

Research Brief

Metadata summary

An important emerging application of coding agents is agent optimization: the iterative improvement of a target agent through edit-execute-evaluate cycles.

Based on abstract + metadata only. Check the source paper before making high-confidence protocol decisions.

Key Takeaways

  • An important emerging application of coding agents is agent optimization: the iterative improvement of a target agent through edit-execute-evaluate cycles.
  • Despite its relevance, the community lacks a systematic understanding of coding agent performance on this task.
  • Agent optimization differs fundamentally from conventional software engineering: the target agent interleaves deterministic code with stochastic LLM completions, requiring structured capture of both intermediate reasoning and downstream execution outcomes.

Researcher Actions

  • Compare this paper against nearby papers in the same arXiv category before using it for protocol decisions.
  • Check the full text for explicit evaluation design choices (raters, protocol, and metrics).
  • Use related-paper links to find stronger protocol-specific references.

Caveats

  • Generated from abstract + metadata only; no PDF parsing.
  • Signals below are heuristic and may miss details reported outside the abstract.

Recommended Queries

Research Summary

Contribution Summary

  • An important emerging application of coding agents is agent optimization: the iterative improvement of a target agent through edit-execute-evaluate cycles.
  • Despite its relevance, the community lacks a systematic understanding of coding agent performance on this task.
  • To address these challenges, we introduce VERO (Versioning, Rewards, and Observations), which provides (1) a reproducible evaluation harness with versioned agent snapshots, budget-controlled evaluation, and structured execution traces, and…

Why It Matters For Eval

  • An important emerging application of coding agents is agent optimization: the iterative improvement of a target agent through edit-execute-evaluate cycles.
  • To address these challenges, we introduce VERO (Versioning, Rewards, and Observations), which provides (1) a reproducible evaluation harness with versioned agent snapshots, budget-controlled evaluation, and structured execution traces, and…

Researcher Checklist

  • Gap: Human feedback protocol is explicit

    No explicit human feedback protocol detected.

  • Pass: Evaluation mode is explicit

    Detected: Automatic Metrics

  • Gap: Quality control reporting appears

    No calibration/adjudication/IAA control explicitly detected.

  • Gap: Benchmark or dataset anchors are present

    No benchmark/dataset anchor extracted from abstract.

  • Pass: Metric reporting is present

    Detected: relevance

Related Papers

Papers are ranked by protocol overlap, extraction signal alignment, and semantic proximity.

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