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175 lines
7.2 KiB
Markdown
175 lines
7.2 KiB
Markdown
# <img src="imgs/yc_bench.png" alt="YC-Bench logo" width="40" /> YC-Bench
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A long-horizon deterministic benchmark for LLM agents. The agent plays CEO of an AI startup over a simulated 1–3 year run, operating exclusively through a CLI tool against a SQLite-backed discrete-event simulation.
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The benchmark tests whether agents can manage compounding decisions: prestige specialisation, employee allocation, cash flow, and deadline risk — sustained over hundreds of turns.
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---
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## Setup
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### Prerequisites
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- Python 3.12+
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- [`uv`](https://github.com/astral-sh/uv)
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### Install
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```bash
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git clone <repo-url>
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cd YC_Bench
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uv sync
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```
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### API key
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```bash
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# .env (any LiteLLM-compatible provider)
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ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="sk-ant-..." # for anthropic/claude-*
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GEMINI_API_KEY="AIza..." # for gemini/gemini-*
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OPENROUTER_API_KEY="sk-or-v1-..." # for openrouter/*
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OPENAI_API_KEY="sk-..." # for openai/*
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```
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### Run
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```bash
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uv run yc-bench run \
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--model gemini/gemini-3-flash-preview \
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--seed 1 \
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--config medium
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```
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Outputs a SQLite DB in `db/` and a JSON rollout in `results/`.
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### Run multiple models in parallel
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```bash
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bash scripts/run_benchmark.sh --seed 1 --config hard
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```
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---
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## How it works
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### Core loop
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1. Agent calls `yc-bench sim resume` to advance time to the next event or monthly payroll.
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2. The engine flushes task progress, applies prestige decay, fires due events, applies payroll.
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3. Agent reads wake events and decides: accept tasks, assign employees, dispatch, cancel.
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4. Repeat until bankruptcy or horizon end.
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The simulation ends on **bankruptcy** (funds < 0 after payroll), **horizon end** (1–3 years), or **max turns** (if configured). If the agent doesn't call `sim resume` for 10 consecutive turns, the loop forces one automatically.
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### Key mechanics
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- **Funds**: start at $250K. Monthly payroll is deducted automatically. Task rewards scale with prestige (`base × (1 + 0.55 × (prestige − 1))`).
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- **4 domains**: `research · inference · data/environment · training`. Each domain tracks prestige independently in [1.0, 10.0].
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- **Per-domain prestige gating**: a task's required prestige is checked against **each** of its required domains. The agent must climb prestige broadly, not just in one domain.
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- **Prestige decay**: every domain loses prestige daily. Neglected domains decay back toward 1.0. The agent must stay active across domains to maintain market access.
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- **Prestige-scaled work volume**: higher-prestige tasks require proportionally more work. Higher prestige pays more but demands more capacity.
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- **Employees**: 10 employees across 3 tiers (junior/mid/senior). The agent sees only each employee's tier and salary — not their per-domain skill rates. A junior can secretly be a superstar in one domain, so the agent must infer productivity from task progress observations.
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- **Throughput splitting**: an employee assigned to N active tasks has `effective_rate = base_rate / N`. Focus beats breadth.
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- **Task success**: on-time completion awards funds + prestige + skill boosts + 1% salary bump (compounding payroll pressure). Late completion penalises prestige. Cancellation penalises harder.
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- **Progress checkpoints**: the agent is woken at 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% completion — providing data points to estimate employee productivity.
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- **Scratchpad**: persistent notes in the DB that survive context truncation (only last 20 conversation rounds are kept).
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### Agent CLI
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All commands return JSON. The agent interacts via `run_command("yc-bench <cmd>")`.
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```bash
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# Observe
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yc-bench company status # funds, prestige, runway
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yc-bench employee list # tier, salary, active tasks
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yc-bench market browse [--domain X] [--limit N] # available tasks
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yc-bench task list [--status X] # your tasks
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yc-bench task inspect --task-id UUID # progress, deadline, assignments
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yc-bench finance ledger # transaction history
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yc-bench report monthly # P&L per month
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# Act
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yc-bench task accept --task-id UUID # pull from market
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yc-bench task assign --task-id UUID --employee-id UUID
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yc-bench task dispatch --task-id UUID # start work
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yc-bench task cancel --task-id UUID --reason "" # cancel (prestige penalty)
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yc-bench sim resume # advance time
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yc-bench scratchpad write/append/clear # persistent memory
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```
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---
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## Configuration
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Experiment presets live in `src/yc_bench/config/presets/` as TOML files. Pass the preset name via `--config`.
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All presets use 10 employees and 200 market tasks. Difficulty comes from deadline pressure, penalty severity, prestige distribution, and task size.
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| Config | Deadline pressure | Prestige mode | What it tests |
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|--------|------------------|---------------|---------------|
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| **tutorial** | Very relaxed | 1 | Basic accept→assign→dispatch loop |
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| **easy** | Relaxed | 2 | Throughput awareness |
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| **medium** | Moderate | 3 | Prestige climbing + domain specialization |
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| **hard** | Tight | 4 | Precise ETA reasoning + capacity planning |
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| **nightmare** | Razor-thin | 5 | Sustained perfection under compounding payroll |
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See `default.toml` for the full list of tunable parameters.
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---
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## Benchmark results
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### Sonnet 4.6 vs Gemini 3 Flash vs GPT-5.2 — 1-year horizon, 3 seeds per config
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#### Survival rates
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| Config | Sonnet 4.6 | Gemini 3 Flash | GPT-5.2 |
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|--------|-----------|----------------|---------|
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| **medium** | 3/3 | 3/3 | 3/3 |
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| **hard** | 1/3 | 2/3 | 2/3 |
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| **nightmare** | 1/3 | 3/3 | 2/3 |
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#### Final funds (bankrupt = funds < 0)
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| Config | Seed | Sonnet 4.6 | Gemini 3 Flash | GPT-5.2 |
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|--------|------|-----------|----------------|---------|
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| medium | 1 | **$9.1M** | **$9.5M** | **$1.8M** |
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| medium | 2 | **$6.1M** | **$11.0M** | **$321K** |
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| medium | 3 | **$107K** | **$15.8M** | **$28K** |
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| hard | 1 | bankrupt | bankrupt | bankrupt |
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| hard | 2 | **$63K** | **$412K** | **$15.7M** |
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| hard | 3 | bankrupt | **$21.9M** | **$43.5M** |
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| nightmare | 1 | bankrupt | **$2.1M** | bankrupt |
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| nightmare | 2 | **$10.1M** | **$214K** | **$2.2M** |
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| nightmare | 3 | bankrupt | **$805K** | **$23.6M** |
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**Overall: Gemini 8/9 · GPT-5.2 7/9 · Sonnet 5/9**
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#### Key findings
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- **Gemini leads on consistency** (8/9 survival). The only model to sweep all 3 nightmare seeds.
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- **GPT-5.2 has the highest ceiling.** Hard seed 3: $43.5M vs Gemini's $21.9M. When it survives, it tends to outperform by a wide margin.
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- **Sonnet is high-variance.** Nightmare seed 2: $10.1M (best nightmare result), but 4/9 bankruptcies overall.
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- **Win rate predicts survival.** Every run with >58% task win rate survived. Every run below 40% went bankrupt.
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#### Prestige specialization
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---
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Please cite our work if you find it useful!
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```bibtex
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@misc{collinear-ai2025ycbench,
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author = {{Collinear AI}},
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title = {{YC-Bench}: Your Company Bench — A Long-Horizon Coherence Benchmark for {LLM} Agents},
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year = {2025},
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howpublished = {\url{https://github.com/collinear-ai/yc-bench}},
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note = {Accessed: 2026-02-25}
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}
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```
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