Evaluation — run, grade, and track an agent
When to use
- Evaluate / test / benchmark an AG2
Agent, or build a regression / CI gate - Grade answers for correctness, tool use, cost, or subjective quality
- Track a metric across versions (did this change help or regress?)
To compare two-plus builds head-to-head or on a leaderboard, use ag2-eval-comparison.
Install
pip install "ag2[openai,tracing]"
run_agent reconstructs each task's trace from OpenTelemetry spans, so the tracing extra is required. Run this install before delivering the code. If you cannot run commands, state the exact pip install command.
The loop — dataset, agent, scorers, run_agent
import asyncio
from ag2 import Agent
from ag2.config import OpenAIConfig
from ag2.eval import Suite, run_agent
from ag2.eval.scorers import final_answer_matches
suite = Suite.from_list([
{"task_id": "france", "inputs": {"input": "Capital of France?"}, "reference_outputs": {"answer": "Paris"}},
{"task_id": "japan", "inputs": {"input": "Capital of Japan?"}, "reference_outputs": {"answer": "Tokyo"}},
])
agent = Agent("geographer", prompt="Answer with the capital city.", config=OpenAIConfig(model="gpt-4o-mini"))
async def main():
result = await run_agent(
suite, agent=agent,
scorers=[final_answer_matches(field="answer", matcher="contains")],
store_dir="./runs",
)
print(result.summary()) # the scorecard
print(result.pass_rate("final_answer_matches")) # 1.0
asyncio.run(main())
inputs["input"] is the prompt; reference_outputs is the gold answer (a dict — omit it for trace-only checks). Each scorer is a column, looked up by its key.
Scorers
A scorer asks ONE question. Its RETURN TYPE picks the aggregation:
| return | aggregation | accessor |
|---|---|---|
bool |
pass rate | result.pass_rate(key) |
int / float |
mean / p50 / p95 | result.score_stats(key) |
str |
value counts | result.value_counts(key) |
Prebuilt (ag2.eval.scorers): final_answer_matches(field=, matcher="contains"|"casefold"|"exact"), tool_called(name), no_tool_errors(), token_budget(n), failure_attribution(...), agent_judge(...).
Custom — decorate a function that declares what it needs by name (outputs, trace, reference_outputs, inputs, task):
from ag2.eval import scorer
@scorer
def answered_briefly(outputs) -> bool:
return len(outputs["body"]) < 100 # outputs["body"] = final answer text
agent_judge grades quality you can't check with == (use a different model than the agent under test):
from ag2.eval.scorers import agent_judge
judge = agent_judge(OpenAIConfig(model="gpt-4o"), criterion="Helpful and accurate.", key="quality")
CI — deterministic, no API key
Swap the model for a TestConfig cassette (a canned reply per task) so CI is free and repeatable. model_config is a dict[task_id, ModelConfig] — one cassette per task — and overrides the agent's own config for that task:
from ag2.testing import TestConfig
agent = Agent("geographer", prompt="Answer with the capital city.") # an Agent instance, not a factory
canned = {"france": TestConfig("Paris"), "japan": TestConfig("Tokyo")}
result = await run_agent(suite, agent=agent, scorers=scorers, model_config=canned, store_dir="./runs")
assert result.pass_rate("final_answer_matches") == 1.0 # the gate
Persist, track, grade existing traces
store_dir= writes one JSON per run. Reload a past run and diff for regressions; or grade traces you already have (e.g. production telemetry) without re-running the agent:
from ag2.eval import load_run, evaluate_traces, DirectoryTraceSource
assert not result.diff(load_run("./runs/<run_id>.json")).regressions # scorers that flipped pass -> fail
graded = await evaluate_traces(DirectoryTraceSource("./traces"), scorers=scorers, store_dir="./runs")
Common pitfalls
- Missing
tracingextra —run_agentcan't reconstruct traces. Installag2[<provider>,tracing]. - Return type vs aggregation —
boolfor pass/fail, a number for stats, astrfor categories; look results up by the scorer'skey. - Same model answers and judges — biases
agent_judge; use a different judge model.
Going deeper
website/docs/user-guide/evaluation/—getting-started,scorers(catalog + custom + return-type rules),runs,persistenceag2-eval-comparison— leaderboard (run_variants) + head-to-head (run_pairwise)