waggle-os/benchmarks/gaia2/WAGGLE-HARNESS-PROBE-N10-2026-05-22.md

Waggle harness — first GAIA 2 probe (N=10, PRELIMINARY)

Date: 2026-05-22 · Pillar 1 first apples-to-apples · NOT a conclusion

What this is

The first run of Waggle's own runAgentLoop inside the GAIA 2 rig, vs the Hermes reference harness, on the same 10 search-split scenarios (sorted-order subset of the Hermes N=160). Same model (Sonnet 4.6), same single terminal tool, same AGENTS.md, same in-container judge. Waggle gates OFF (skillDistillation/verification) for fairness — Hermes has no such meta-features.

Result (self-judged, matched N=10)

Harness	PASS	Rate
Hermes (reference)	9/10	90%
Waggle	7/10	70%

Per-scenario: Waggle FAILed 21_1afh09, 21_5bftlu (both Hermes PASS); both FAILed 21_eo7tr6; rest PASS.

Why this is NOT yet a verdict on harness quality

1. N=10 → Wilson CI ≈ ±28pp. 70% vs 90% overlaps massively — not statistically distinguishable.
2. Run-to-run variance is real. 21_1afh09 PASSED in the gates-off n1 smoke but FAILED in this probe under identical config → single-run-per-scenario is noisy at this N. A real comparison needs larger N and/or pass@k.
3. Self-judged. The Hermes headline was validated by an independent trio (JUDGE-DELTA doc). Waggle's answers must get the same trio re-judge for parity before any comparison is published.
4. Gateway confound. Waggle → OpenRouter (Sonnet 4.6, OpenAI-compat); Hermes → Anthropic direct (Sonnet 4.6). Same model, different gateway. For strict parity, point both at one litellm proxy.

The value delivered

The measurement rig works end-to-end — Waggle's harness is now a benchmarkable entity in GAIA 2. That was the hard part (native-dep gate, container, socket worker, terminal→gaia2-exec, fairness config). The digit (70%) is a placeholder until a real run.

Next for a defensible Pillar-1 number

• Larger N (≥40, ideally the full 160 matched set) + pass@k to quench single-run variance.
• Trio-strict re-judge of Waggle (reuse rejudge_user_message.py) — same protocol as Hermes.
• Optional: single litellm proxy for both harnesses to remove the gateway confound.
• Report Waggle strict + trio-strict alongside Hermes 83.8% / 80.6% under one protocol.

Artifacts

• Waggle run: runs/waggle-harness-probe-n10/
• Hermes baseline: runs/p4-full-hermes-n160/ (matched subset)
• Container/worker: waggle-container/ · build: waggle-container/BUILD.md