Equation 26 · Why Coding Agents Fail: Long-Horizon Reliability in OpenAI Codex
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Symbol V
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=
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Define C as the agent’s completion claim and V as external task success. Four states follow: . False completion is operationally expensive because it transfers discovery to the reviewer. It can arise from missing tests, misread output, stale state, premature stopping, or incentives in the prompt to present a polished result. A reliable harness should make “blocked,” “partially complete,” and “evidence inconclusive” legitimate terminal states.
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