[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"branding":3,"analytics":7,"article-new-ai-agent-harness-praxa-proves-actions-not-performance":10,"sections":40},{"siteName":4,"siteTagline":5,"publisherName":4,"contactEmail":6},"The Revision","Tech news, decoded.","editor@therevision.news",{"gaMeasurementId":8,"adsenseClientId":9},"G-ZW2MV82GYR","ca-pub-8533917693782264",{"article":11},{"id":12,"slug":13,"title":14,"dek":15,"body_md":16,"tags_json":17,"published_at":18,"created_at":19,"updated_at":20,"status":21,"review_note":22,"review_notes":23,"image_url":22,"persona_id":22,"persona_name":22,"section":30,"tags":31,"sources":35,"feedback":39,"feedback_at":22,"cost_usd":39,"total_tokens":39},9444,"new-ai-agent-harness-praxa-proves-actions-not-performance","New AI Agent Harness Praxa Proves Actions, Not Performance","A new research harness logs every step an AI agent takes, but its own benchmarks show mixed results, not proof the approach makes agents better or safer.","A new agent harness called Praxa promises to prove, step by step, that an AI agent's actions actually happened - not just that the agent claimed they did.\n\nPraxa builds in five explicit checkpoints: proposal, authority, dispatch, verified external effect, and serving promotion. Researchers ran four separate evaluations to test it. A self-run audit of the codebase passed 1,027 of 1,027 unit tests and 89 of 89 Workerd tests, though the raw transcripts were not independently reproduced. In a Terminal-Bench pilot across 12 tasks, the harness-equipped version tied the baseline at 17 of 36 strict trials while using 37.49% more input tokens and 50.73% more output tokens. A separate development comparison found a Praxa-derived agent matched baseline accuracy on 180 of 180 trials while using 37.11% fewer tokens, 33.84% lower estimated cost, and 11.63% fewer steps.\n\nThe interesting part isn't speed, it's the accounting. Most agent frameworks let a model simply claim it finished a task. Praxa forces an external read-back to confirm the effect actually occurred before anything gets marked done, which matters more as companies hand agents real permissions like editing production config or moving money.\n\nThe authors are careful to say this proves the bookkeeping works, not that the agent is smarter, safer, or cheaper at scale - a distinction plenty of agent pitch decks skip.","[\"ai-agents\",\"ai-safety\",\"benchmarking\"]","2026-10-02T04:00:00.000Z","2026-10-02T19:17:40.911Z","2026-10-02T19:17:45.606Z","published",null,[24],{"id":25,"reviewer":26,"round":27,"reason":28,"status":29},"editor-r1","editor",1,"Fix the third evaluation lane: the draft says the Praxa-derived agent used 'roughly a third fewer tokens and steps,' but the source shows only an 11.63% reduction in steps (not a third) alongside the 37.11% token reduction — restate the step figure accurately.","resolved","ai",[32,33,34],"ai-agents","ai-safety","benchmarking",[36],{"name":37,"url":38},"arXiv cs.AI","https:\u002F\u002Farxiv.org\u002Fabs\u002F2610.00015",0,{"sections":41},[42,45,50,55,60,65,70,75,80,85,90,95,100,105],{"name":43,"slug":30,"count":44,"latest_published_at":18},"AI",5746,{"name":46,"slug":47,"count":48,"latest_published_at":49},"Security","security",829,"2026-10-01T17:31:56.000Z",{"name":51,"slug":52,"count":53,"latest_published_at":54},"Policy","policy",437,"2026-10-01T18:10:00.000Z",{"name":56,"slug":57,"count":58,"latest_published_at":59},"Deals","deals",317,"2026-10-01T22:00:00.000Z",{"name":61,"slug":62,"count":63,"latest_published_at":64},"Hardware","hardware",198,"2026-10-01T17:38:48.000Z",{"name":66,"slug":67,"count":68,"latest_published_at":69},"Science","science",168,"2026-10-01T18:35:55.000Z",{"name":71,"slug":72,"count":73,"latest_published_at":74},"Consumer Tech","consumer-tech",155,"2026-10-01T19:54:10.000Z",{"name":76,"slug":77,"count":78,"latest_published_at":79},"Dev Tools","dev-tools",96,"2026-10-01T16:57:03.000Z",{"name":81,"slug":82,"count":83,"latest_published_at":84},"Software","software",93,"2026-09-30T21:41:11.000Z",{"name":86,"slug":87,"count":88,"latest_published_at":89},"Startups","startups",90,"2026-10-01T21:55:22.000Z",{"name":91,"slug":92,"count":93,"latest_published_at":94},"Gaming","gaming",53,"2026-10-02T02:50:39.000Z",{"name":96,"slug":97,"count":98,"latest_published_at":99},"General","general",50,"2026-09-30T21:37:54.000Z",{"name":101,"slug":102,"count":103,"latest_published_at":104},"Reviews","reviews",31,"2026-09-28T14:31:34.000Z",{"name":106,"slug":107,"count":108,"latest_published_at":109},"How-To","how-to",7,"2026-10-01T09:00:00.000Z"]