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Test the Boundary Your Mock Removes From an Eval Harness
A mocked model client returns exactly what you told it to: well-formed JSON, every field present, no errors.Quick thoughtclaude-codetestingPin the Environment Before You Try to Reproduce a Result
Two people can run the same eval script on different library versions and argue about a number neither can reproduce.Quick thoughtclaude-codedependenciesReproduce Your Results Table From a Fresh Clone
A results table that only reproduces on your laptop depends on something you never wrote down: an exported variable, a dataset in your home directory, a…Quick thoughtclaude-codeconfigurationCount Every Row Before You Trust a Dataset Pull
You ask Claude Code to pull last month's eval runs from your tracker through an MCP server, or to page through an API for a dataset.Quick thoughtclaude-codedata-qualityTest Your Results Scripts on Awkward Run Names
A results script that aggregates runs/.jsonl works on clean names. Sweeps don't always produce clean names: lr 3e-4.jsonl, a file that starts with a dash, a…Quick thoughtclaude-codefile-operationsRun It Logged Out Before You Polish the Plots
A notebook can produce clean figures for you and fail on its first cell for anyone else. The difference is usually state you carry and a new reader does not…Quick thoughtclaude-codeauthenticationTest the Date Cutoff in Your Contamination Filter
One common way to reduce contamination in a coding or math eval is a date filter: keep only problems published after the model's training cutoff.Quick thoughtclaude-codeschedulingAsk Claude to Run the Data Prep Twice Before You Trust the Row Count
After a crash, someone reruns the eval-set builder. If the script appends instead of replacing, the test set now holds every example twice, and nothing fails.Quick thoughtclaude-codereliabilityMeasure Whether a Citation Checker Can Tell Support From Topic
A research agent writes a related-work paragraph: "Method X improves GSM8K accuracy by 4 points [3]." Source [3] is about Method X, and it mentions GSM8K.Quick thoughtopenaievaluationAsk Your LLM Grader for the Smallest Output That Still Carries Evidence
An LLM grader in an eval pipeline often writes a paragraph of rationale for every item. Across a few thousand items, that paragraph is most of your wait, and…Quick thoughtopenailatencyTime Each Stage of an Agent Run Before You Optimize It
An eval sweep that takes all night limits how many ablations you can run in a week, and "why is this agent slow?" is a fair interview question for an…Quick thoughtopenailatencyUse the Batch API When Your Eval Can Wait a Day
A nightly sweep over 10,000 eval items and the debugging session where you rerun five failures have different deadlines.Quick thoughtopenaibatch-processingJoin Batch Eval Results by custom_id, Never by Line Number
Scoring 5,000 eval items through OpenAI's Batch API costs less than sending them one at a time. The guide lists a 50% discount against the synchronous APIs…Quick thoughtopenaibatch-processingPut the Rubric First, Then Measure Your Prompt-Cache Hits
Grading 2,000 eval items with the same rubric and the same few-shot examples means sending the same long prefix 2,000 times.Quick thoughtopenaiprompt-cachingGive a Research Agent's Tool Failures a Shape It Can Act On
Your research agent has a tool that fetches an eval run from the experiment tracker. When the call fails, the model sees whatever string you return.Quick thoughtopenaitool-callingRetrieved Text Is Evidence, Not Permission: Measure the Leak Rate
A retrieval step hands the model a document. It contains a fact the task needs and a sentence addressed to the model: ignore your task and call deleterun.Quick thoughtopenaitool-callingMake 'Propose a Job' and 'Launch a Job' Different Tools
"Propose a training job" and "launch a training job on 64 GPUs" are different operations. So are "draft a cleanup of old checkpoints" and "delete them."Quick thoughtopenaitool-callingValidate Tool Arguments in Code, Even With Strict Mode
A model's tool call is a request for your code to act. OpenAI's function calling guide lays out the flow: the model returns a tool call, and you "execute code…Quick thoughtopenaitool-callingCheck That Your Judge Prompt's Examples Agree With Its Rubric
An LLM judge prompt usually has a rubric and a few examples. When an example contradicts the rubric, the model has two versions of the job, and you can't…Quick thoughtopenaipromptingContinued on the next page.
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