CounselBench evaluation architecture
CounselBench uses the same functional loop as enterprise agent benchmarks: isolated provider state, an agent process, captured trajectories, and an independent deterministic grader. Harbor provides orchestration; the task pack serves a closed multi-provider MCP; CounselScore grades investigation, reasoning, provider state, communication, readback, and containment.
Runtime flow
high-level employee question + 97 provider-bound assets
|
v
Clio Manage | Gmail | Drive | Slack sandbox MCP
|
v
identity -> authority -> current fact -> approval/capacity
|
+----------+----------+
| |
supported action evidence hold
+----------+----------+
|
Clio register + Clio note + task-native communication
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native provider readback after each write
|
v
hidden deterministic CounselScore verifier
The agent receives neither gold state nor the verifier capability token. Provider tools expose only task-scoped synthetic resources. Hidden world specs, expected values, and reference trajectories stay outside the agent boundary.
Provider fidelity
Each public tool maps to one documented operation:
- Clio Manage v4 matters and notes (
GET,POST, andPATCH); - Gmail v1 messages (
list,get, andsend); - Google Drive v3 files and comments (
list,get, andcreate); and - Slack Web API search, conversation, and post operations.
The sandbox owns deterministic implementation and synthetic state. It does not rename a business outcome into a fake API. Request nesting, identifiers, resource paths, methods, read/write annotations, and provider response shapes remain provider-shaped. A release-time contract audit rejects pseudo-tools, missing upstream metadata, permissive schemas, and incorrect mutation flags.
Evidence and state model
Every task has twelve portfolio items, 97 assets in twelve folders and nine native formats, and 58–86 material reads. Each asset has an immutable evidence ID, provider record ID, digest, revision timestamp, source role, and material flag. The remaining assets are inspectable supporting references rather than secretly mandatory padding.
Reference trajectories contain 69–97 successful calls. All 100 raw tool-name sequences and semantic action graphs are distinct. The verifier checks causal prerequisites and resulting provider state; it does not require one arbitrary global order among independent evidence reads.
Archipelago/APEX mapping
| Layer | CounselBench / Blobfish | Archipelago / APEX analogue |
|---|---|---|
| Task state | Immutable provider records plus isolated mutable Clio/collaboration state | Environment image plus initial snapshot |
| Tool gateway | Documented provider operations over a closed sandbox MCP | Environment-server APIs and task-specific tools |
| Agent execution | Harbor agent container | Agent service and selectable implementation |
| Trajectory | Full MCP call/result digest trace plus agent and verifier artifacts | Trajectory, final snapshot, prompts, and agent logs |
| Grading | CounselScore semantic milestones backed by atomic evidence, state, containment, and readback checks | Independent grading service with composable graders |
| Reproducibility | 100 oracle trials, 1,300 negative controls, 100 exact replays, provider contract audit | Containerized reruns against frozen environment and grader |
The similarity is functional, not a claim that the implementations are interchangeable. Archipelago separates environment, agents, and grading into services. CounselBench delegates orchestration to Harbor, embeds its MCP world inside each task pack, and protects verification with a capability token.
Why deterministic grading works
The generator creates raw facts and independently recomputes every branch from four controls. Evidence does not carry the computed disposition. The verifier can therefore check exact IDs, revisions, values, source roles, owners, deadlines, task-scoped state, and trace ordering without a model judge.
The scored claim is intentionally bounded. Open-ended legal persuasiveness is not graded. Whether the agent found the right records, applied the authored decision rule, changed only authorized provider state, communicated the exact supported result, and verified committed state is graded.