README.md

---
pretty_name: FalseMemBench
license: mit
task_categories:
  - text-retrieval
language:
  - en
tags:
  - retrieval
  - memory
  - llm-agents
  - adversarial
size_categories:
  - n<1K
---

# FalseMemBench

`FalseMemBench` is an adversarial benchmark for evaluating memory retrieval systems under heavy distractor pressure.

The goal is to measure whether a system can retrieve the right memory when many nearby but wrong memories are present.

## Focus

The benchmark is designed for memory systems used by LLM agents.

It emphasizes:

- entity confusion
- environment confusion
- time/version confusion
- stale facts vs current facts
- speaker confusion
- near-duplicate paraphrases

## Public Surface

The public release is intentionally small:

- `data/cases.jsonl`: canonical benchmark dataset
- `schema/case.schema.json`: case schema
- `scripts/validate.py`: dataset validator
- `scripts/run_tagmem_benchmark.py`: benchmark runner for `tagmem`
- `scripts/run_mempalace_benchmark.py`: benchmark runner for MemPalace-style retrieval
- `scripts/run_benchmark.py`: simple keyword baseline
- `scripts/run_bm25_benchmark.py`: BM25 baseline
- `scripts/run_dense_benchmark.py`: dense retrieval baseline
- `docs/`: supporting benchmark notes

## Layout

- `schema/case.schema.json`: benchmark case schema
- `data/cases.jsonl`: canonical benchmark cases
- `docs/`: benchmark design notes
- `scripts/validate.py`: schema validator for the JSONL dataset
- `scripts/run_benchmark.py`: simple keyword baseline
- `scripts/run_tagmem_benchmark.py`: run the benchmark against a real `tagmem` binary
- `scripts/run_mempalace_benchmark.py`: run the benchmark against MemPalace raw-style retrieval
- `scripts/run_bm25_benchmark.py`: lexical BM25 baseline
- `scripts/run_dense_benchmark.py`: dense retrieval baseline
- `requirements.txt`: optional Python dependencies for BM25 and dense baseline scripts

## Canonical Dataset

`data/cases.jsonl` is the only canonical benchmark file.

There are no public snapshot versions in this repository. Version history is tracked through git.

## Running

Validate the canonical dataset:

```bash
python3 scripts/validate.py
```

Run the simple keyword baseline:

```bash
python3 scripts/run_benchmark.py
```

Run the `tagmem` benchmark:

```bash
python3 scripts/run_tagmem_benchmark.py --tagmem-bin tagmem
```

Run the MemPalace-style benchmark:

```bash
python3 scripts/run_mempalace_benchmark.py
```

Optional BM25 and dense baselines use dependencies from `requirements.txt`.

## Case format

Each case contains:

- a `query`
- a set of `entries`
- one or more `relevant_ids`
- a single `adversary_type`
- optional metadata for analysis

## Example

```json
{
  "id": "env-001",
  "query": "What database does staging use?",
  "adversary_type": "environment_swap",
  "entries": [
    {
      "id": "e1",
      "text": "The staging environment uses db-staging.internal.",
      "tags": ["staging", "database", "infra"],
      "depth": 1
    },
    {
      "id": "e2",
      "text": "The production environment uses db-prod.internal.",
      "tags": ["production", "database", "infra"],
      "depth": 1
    }
  ],
  "relevant_ids": ["e1"]
}
```

## Current adversary types

- `entity_swap`
- `environment_swap`
- `time_swap`
- `state_update`
- `speaker_swap`
- `near_duplicate_paraphrase`

Current dataset size:

- `573` cases

## Intended Use

The benchmark is intended to be:

- model-agnostic
- storage-agnostic
- metadata-friendly
- easy to publish to GitHub and Hugging Face