arXiv:2606.07889cs.LGcs.AI2026-06被引 3

发现代码代理执行中'自知却违规'的早期失效信号。

Strained Coherence: A Pre-Failure Signal in Coding Agent Execution Trajectories

  • 通过分析推理轨迹,识别代理自知问题仍继续执行的模式
  • 被标记轨迹失败率高达94%,未标记仅46%,差距显著
  • 可定位具体违规段落,适合安全审计与模型调试

基于大语言模型的代码代理有时会意识到自身推理中的问题,却仍继续执行。我们称此为‘紧张一致性’:一种安全相关的失效模式,即代理掌握应改变行为的信息,明确指出该信息,但仍选择违背它。该模式与口头奖励劫持重叠,即代理指出了任务代理与根本目标之间的矛盾,却仍优化代理。本文给出操作定义,构建一个基于Claude Sonnet 4.6的判别器,读取完整执行轨迹并标记该模式出现的片段,在44个Terminal-bench-2轨迹上使用Qwen3.5-35B-A3B作为主干模型进行评估。被标记轨迹失败率达94%,未标记为46%(47点差距,Fisher精确检验p=0.003;剔除三个提示嵌入样本后仍为46点,p=0.006)。在相同选择性下,检测器精度达94%,优于词汇话语标记基线的88%;两者交集的10条轨迹全部失败(Clopper-Pearson 95%置信区间[69%, 100%])。在Gemma4-31B上复现43条轨迹:整体信号方向一致但不显著(20点差距,p=0.31),主要因13条无思考内容的轨迹导致检测器无分析基础。高语义量组中,差距达+30点;中、高语义量的Qwen组均为+40点。首次标记出现在平均83-84%的轨迹时间点,且在软化冲突标记的改写中仍保持有效(8/8条)。不同于单变量预测器,该检测器输出可解释的段落级结果——引用的认知、动作及冲突类型,清晰展示代理所见与无视的内容。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

LLM-based coding agents sometimes acknowledge a problem in their own reasoning and then proceed anyway. We call this pattern strained coherence: a safety-relevant failure mode in which an agent has information that should change its behavior, states that information, and still acts against it. The pattern overlaps with verbalized reward hacking, where an agent names a tension between a task proxy and the underlying goal yet optimizes the proxy anyway. We give an operational definition, build a Claude Sonnet 4.6 judge that reads full trajectories and flags spans where the pattern occurs, and evaluate it on 44 Terminal-bench-2 trajectories using a Qwen3.5-35B-A3B backbone. Flagged trajectories fail 94% of the time versus 46% for unflagged trajectories (47-point gap, Fisher's exact p = 0.003; 46 points after excluding three prompt-embedded examples, p = 0.006). At matched selectivity, the detector reaches 94% precision versus 88% for a lexical discourse-marker baseline; the 10-trajectory intersection of the two methods has a 100% failure rate (Clopper-Pearson 95% CI [69%, 100%]). We replicate on Gemma4-31B with 43 trajectories: the overall signal is directionally consistent but not significant (20-point gap, p = 0.31), with attenuation driven largely by 13 trajectories with zero think content, where the detector has no substrate to analyze. In the high-verbosity Gemma tertile, the gap is +30 points; in the mid- and high-verbosity Qwen tertiles, it is +40 points each. The first flag appears at a median of 83-84% of elapsed trajectory time across both models, and the binary flag survives paraphrases that soften explicit conflict markers (8/8 trajectories). Unlike univariate predictors, the detector emits interpretable span-level output -- quoted acknowledgment, quoted action, and typed conflict -- showing what the agent saw and ignored.

代码生成安全检测大模型推理失效分析

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