A Survey of Evaluation Practices for Language-Model Agents: What is measured, how it is measured, and what is missing
Kofi Mensah, Ingrid Novak, Lena Hartwell
As language-model agents move from demonstrations to deployments, the way they are evaluated determines which claims can be trusted. We review how agents are evaluated in the literature, organising practice along four axes: the task environment, the success criterion, the treatment of variance, and the reporting of cost. We identify recurring weaknesses: success is often judged by another model without validation, runs are rarely repeated, cost and latency are reported in under a third of studies, and environment versions are seldom pinned. We close with a checklist for evaluation reports and open problems, including measurement of safety-relevant side effects.