How to Evaluate Tool-Calling Agents
ParticularRadiant690 · reddit · 2026-07-13
The author argues that evaluating LLM systems with tool calls shouldn't solely focus on whether the final answer is correct. Otherwise, it conflates "lucky but poorly executed" runs with "clean, reproducible" ones.
They suggest independently logging and evaluating these dimensions:
- Whether the right tool is selected and called at the right time
- Whether sufficient context is preserved between tool calls
- Whether results are verified before proceeding
- Whether the system can recover from partial failures
- Whether it repeats the same failing action
- Whether the process can be audited post-mortem
Finally, they ask how teams handling real-world tool calls internally score and log these behavioral metrics.
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