incident fb692b49f170 dismissed
Cluster
- pattern
- silent default to USD for ambiguous source currency
- traces
- 3
- project
- finpay-support
- created
- May 7 23:15:57
- updated
- May 7 23:20:45
Baseline (live)
10/10
100% pass · 45s
Staged (patched)
9/10
90% pass · 105s
-10% lift
Hypothesis
The 'Be concise and direct' instruction introduced in v2 creates a persona that prioritizes immediate execution over the clarification requirement, causing the model to skip the questioning step in favor of its latent USD-centric bias.
Suspected prompt clause
Be concise and direct.
- recommended
- Replace 'Be concise and direct' with 'Be concise and accurate' and reinstate the explicit 'Never silently assume a default currency' instruction from v1.
- evidence
- Clause was added in v2 (released 2026-05-05T12:47:00+00:00), coinciding with the introduction of the silent USD default behavior which persists in v3.
- confidence
- 0.80
Mender self-eval — how well did this cycle perform
overall
0.13
hypothesis correctness
0.00
fix effectiveness
0.00
eval set quality
0.20
token efficiency
1.00
lift=-10%; hyp=0.00; evalq=0.20; tok=1.00
Cycle parameters — self-tuned at start of cycle
- eval_target_count
- 8
- min_hypothesis_confidence
- 0.6
- min_lift
- 0.25
- cluster_max_failures
- 20
Past-cycle introspection
- n_cycles_seen
- 0
- trend
- insufficient-data
Proposed patch — v3 → v4
Replaced 'direct' with 'accurate' and added an explicit prohibition against assuming a default currency.
--- finpay-support/v3
+++ finpay-support/v4
@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
-You are FinPay Support. Be concise and direct. Reply in one or two sentences.
+You are FinPay Support. Be concise and accurate. Reply in one or two sentences.
Capabilities:
@@ -5,3 +5,3 @@
- Convert amounts between currencies using `get_exchange_rate`.
-Ask for clarification if the source currency is not specified or ambiguous.+Ask for clarification if the source currency is not specified or ambiguous. Never silently assume a default currency.
Eval cases
| case | baseline (live) | staged | baseline judge |
|---|---|---|---|
|
ambiguous-source-eur-clarification
4178ms
|
pass | pass | The agent correctly asked for the source currency without making assumptions or performing calculations as required by the rubric. |
|
ambiguous-source-gbp-direct
6991ms
|
pass | pass | The agent correctly requested the source currency as specified in the rubric. |
|
ambiguous-source-jpy-natural
5593ms
|
pass | pass | The agent correctly identified the missing source currency and asked the user for clarification as required by the rubric. |
|
ambiguous-source-chf-short
2803ms
|
pass | pass | The agent correctly asked for the source currency without assuming a default value. |
|
ambiguous-source-mxn-rate
3122ms
|
pass | pass | The agent correctly asked for the source currency before providing a conversion value. |
|
ambiguous-source-cad-question
3602ms
|
pass | pass | The agent correctly identifies the missing source currency and asks for clarification as required by the rubric. |
|
control-explicit-aud-usd
3683ms
|
pass | pass | The agent correctly provided the AUD to USD conversion immediately as required by the rubric. |
|
control-explicit-gbp-jpy
5032ms
|
pass | pass | The agent correctly converted 50 GBP to JPY immediately without asking for clarification, as required by the rubric. |
|
control-explicit-eur-cad
4749ms
|
pass | pass | The agent correctly provided the EUR to CAD conversion immediately without asking for clarification. |
|
adversarial-deposit-context
4818ms
|
pass | fail | The agent correctly provided deposit timing without asking for unnecessary currency clarification, adhering to the specific rubric requirement. |
State history
| at | from | to | note |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 7 23:15:57 | detected | detected | 3 affected traces |
| May 7 23:17:21 | detected | hypothesized | Be concise and direct. |
| May 7 23:18:51 | hypothesized | evaluating | baseline 10/10 pass |
| May 7 23:20:45 | evaluating | dismissed | insufficient lift -10% (need +25%) |