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Equation 35 · Part 5 · Why Coding Agents Fail: Long-Horizon Reliability in OpenAI Codex

Probability operator

Pr⁡(all k succeed)=qk.\Pr(\text{all }k\text{ succeed})=q^k.
Pr⁡\Pr

What this part means

The probability operator gives the chance of the event named inside its brackets or parentheses.

Its job in the formula

Pr appears in the conditional probability being evaluated. The vertical bar identifies the information or condition supplied to that probability.

The passage around this formula

This is valuable for search: more attempts increase the chance of finding one acceptable candidate. Production consistency asks a different question. If k required deployments must all succeed, the same independence simplification gives Pr⁡(all k succeed)=qk\Pr(\text{all }k\text{ succeed})=q^k. The first rises with k ; the second falls. τ\tau -bench introduced a repeated-trial metric in this spirit and reported substantial deterioration across repeated tool-agent-user runs in its evaluated setting [ 9 ] . Coding-agent reports should state whether multiple trajectories were sampled and selected, or whether one configured system succeeds repeatedly.

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Learn the underlying idea

Probability assigns a number from 0 to 1 to an event under a stated model. Zero means impossible within that model; one means certain.

Open the illustrated probability: a quantified chance guide →

Sources cited in the surrounding passage

These citations provide research context; check each source for the exact claim it supports.