Master

Instrumenting the eval itself

An eval that is always green is not a good eval, it is an unexamined one. Instrumenting the eval means measuring the eval: which cases discriminate, which graders disagree, which runs cost what.

What you will see

One comment line with the measured reason. The number is why it was retired.

About 1 min of reading

Try It

Measure discrimination per case

1

Collect grades across systems

printf 'A q1 pass\nB q1 pass\nC q1 pass\nA q2 pass\nB q2 fail\nC q2 fail\n' > /tmp/all.tsv; wc -l < /tmp/all.tsv

Before you run it, say out loud what it will print. Then open the answer.

What it prints
Six lines. Two cases across three systems.
2

Compute pass rate per case

awk '{s[$2]+=$3=="pass"; n[$2]++} END {for (c in s) printf "%s %.2f\n", c, s[c]/n[c]}' /tmp/all.tsv

Before you run it, say out loud what it will print. Then open the answer.

What it prints
q1 1.00 and q2 0.33. q1 discriminates nothing and is the first retirement candidate.
3

Retire the flat case with a reason

printf '# retired 2026-10-10 pass rate 1.00 across 3 systems\n' >> /tmp/cases.v2.txt; tail -1 /tmp/cases.v2.txt

Before you run it, say out loud what it will print. Then open the answer.

What it prints
One comment line with the measured reason. The number is why it was retired.

Data Flow

A set to a pruned set
1 Every system runs every case
↓
2 Pass rate per case is computed
↓
3 Cost per case is computed
↓
4 Cases are ranked by cost over discrimination and pruned
Why this works
Why the histogram of pass rates is printed

A set where most cases pass at ninety nine percent is a set that cannot rank anything. The histogram shows that in one line.

The steady state of an eval set

Cases are added, measured, and retired on a cycle. A set that only grows is a set that eventually measures nothing.

Examples

Discrimination is the metric

A case every system passes has zero discrimination. It costs the run and contributes nothing to the ranking.

Grader disagreement is a bug signal

Two graders on one output giving different labels means the rubric is ambiguous. The ambiguity is worth more than the score.

Pruning by cost per signal

Cost divided by discrimination ranks cases by what they buy. The worst ratio is the first case to retire.

Words this lesson uses

Each one is defined here on this site. Open the entry for the full definition and the other words it points at.

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