Traces show what happened, not whether it was wrong: Reddit debate on agent debugging

nemupre · reddit · 2026-09-06

The author argues that agent traces record tool calls, inputs, outputs, state transitions, timing, handoffs, and errors — but cannot by themselves prove a result is wrong. An agent can produce a perfectly valid response that still violates business expectations, exposing the gap between observability and evaluation. The post asks where to draw the boundary and what extra signals practitioners add: assertions, expected state, datasets, business rules, or human evaluation.

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