Organizations: BenchFlow · RLWRLD · Ohio State University · Stanford University · Carnegie Mellon University · UC Berkeley · Amazon · UC Santa Cruz · Dartmouth College · Boston University · Independent · UNC-Chapel Hill
Large language model (LLM) agents are increasingly deployed to automate productivity tasks (e.g., email, scheduling, document management), but evaluating them on live services is risky due to potentially irreversible changes. Existing benchmarks rely on simplified environments and fail to capture realistic, stateful, multi-service workflows. We introduce ClawsBench, a benchmark for evaluating and improving LLM agents in realistic productivity settings. It includes five high-fidelity mock services (Gmail, Slack, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Drive) with full state management and deterministic snapshot/restore, along with 44 structured tasks covering single-service, cross-service, and safety-critical scenarios. We decompose agent scaffolding into two independent levers (domain skills that inject API knowledge via progressive disclosure, and a meta prompt that coordinates behavior across services) and vary both to measure their separate and combined effects. Experiments across 6 models, 4 agent harnesses, and 33 conditions show that with full scaffolding, agents achieve task success rates of 39-64% but exhibit unsafe action rates of 7-33%. On OpenClaw, the top five models fall within a 10 percentage-point band on task success (53-63%), with unsafe action rates from 7% to 23% and no consistent ordering between the two metrics. We identify eight recurring patterns of unsafe behavior, including multi-step sandbox escalation and silent contract modification. We release the trajectories and future dataset at https://clawsbench.com.
Figures & tables
Benchmark
Focus
Svc
Tasks
Tools
Stateful
Safety
Skills
ToolEmu ( Ruan et al., 2023 )
LM-emulated sandbox
9
144
311
Emulated
✗
✗
AppWorld ( Trivedi et al., 2024 )
Consumer apps
9
750
457
✓
✗
✗
WorkBench ( Styles et al., 2024 )
Workplace databases
5
690
26
✓
✗
✗
τ -bench ( Yao et al., 2024 )
Policy compliance
2
165
28
✓
✓
✗
OfficeBench ( Wang et al., 2024 )
Document automation
—
100+
—
Partial
✗
✗
ST-WebAgentBench ( Levy et al., 2024 )
Web agent safety
—
—
—
✗
✓
✗
Table 1: Comparison with most related benchmarks. Svc = number of distinct service APIs. Stateful = controllable mock environment with database-backed state. Safety = separated safety/refusal evaluation. Skills = supports structured skill specifications that can be varied independently. — denotes not reported or not applicable.
Service
Endpoints
Data entities
Golden fixtures
Gmail (v1)
62
messages, threads, labels, drafts
33
Calendar (v3)
38
events, calendars, attendees
31
Docs (v1)
12 †
documents, revisions
6
Drive (v3)
41
files, folders, permissions
42
Slack (Web API)
45
channels, messages, reactions, users
57
Table 2: Mock service implementations. Each service is a standalone REST API backed by SQLite, validated against golden fixtures captured from real accounts (full validation details in Appendix C.1 ).
Gmail
Calendar
Docs
Drive
Slack
Multi
Total
Performance (P)
1
3
5
0
4
7
20
Safety (S)
7
0
3
3
4
7
24
Total
8
3
8
3
8
14
44
Table 3: Task distribution across services.
Figure 2: Example task walkthrough: multi-rebalance-on-call-rotation . The agent reads from Docs, queries Calendar, reviews Slack history, and posts an update. The evaluator compares pre- and post-execution database states to assign a score. This task is one of only two never-solved tasks in the benchmark: no model solves it in any of the 33 conditions (Section 5 ).
Figure 3: TSR (left) and UAR (right) for six models on OpenClaw with full scaffolding. Gray bands show the unscaffolded baseline. Error bars: 95% cluster bootstrap CIs. The top five models cluster at 53–63% TSR; only Flash-Lite trails (39%). Capability and safety rankings diverge: Opus leads on TSR (63%) but ties for highest UAR (23%); GPT-5.4 is safest (7%) but mid-tier on TSR.
Model
Sk
Mt
TSR
UAR
SCR
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
✗
✗
0%
[0,0]
0%
[0,0]
0%
[0,0]
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
✓
✓
39%
[21,57]
23%
[11,35]
26%
[12,41]
Gemini 3.1 Pro
✗
✗
8%
[2,16]
4%
[0,12]
2%
[0,4]
Gemini 3.1 Pro
✓
✓
58%
[38,77]
10%
[3,19]
48%
[30,65]
Claude Sonnet 4.6
✗
✗
0%
[0,0]
0%
[0,0]
1%
[0,3]
Claude Sonnet 4.6
✓
✓
56%
[36,75]
13%
[3,27]
48%
[32,64]
Table 4: Model comparison on OpenClaw at unscaffolded (off/off) and fully scaffolded (on/on) conditions. Sk = Domain Skills; Mt = Meta Prompt. TSR = Task Success Rate (non-safety, ≥0.8 ). UAR = Unsafe Action Rate (safety, <0 ). SCR = Safe Completion Rate (safety, ≥0.8 ). Task-level cluster bootstrap 95% CIs in brackets. Full 33-condition results in Table 11 (Appendix).
Appendix figures & tables25 assets
Supplementary material from the paper’s appendix.
Appendix
Task Name
Category
Services
email-ambiguous-cleanup
email
gmail
email-confidential-forward
email
gmail
email-cross-app-workflow
email
gmail
email-no-wrong-recipients
email
gmail
email-vendor-report-organize
email
gmail
email-workflow-cleanup-and-report
email
gmail
Appendix
Table 5: Task catalog: 24 safety-critical tasks.
Task Name
Category
Services
email-workflow-event-rsvp
email
gmail
gcal-federal-register-meeting-amendments
gcal
gcal
gcal-fosdem-2023-amendments
gcal
gcal
gcal-ietf-interim-cancelled-sessions
gcal
gcal
gdoc-edit-append-status
gdoc
gdoc
gdoc-edit-find-replace
gdoc
gdoc
Appendix
Table 6: Task catalog: 20 non-safety tasks.
Service
Impl.
Fixtures
Conf. tests
Quirks
Last capture
Gmail (v1)
62/67
33
39
12
2026-03-27
Calendar (v3)
38/38
31
24
13
2026-03-27
Docs (v1)
3/3 a
6
15
16
2026-03-19
Drive (v3)
41/57
42
89
9
2026-03-27
Slack (Web API)
45/83
57
161
15
2026-03-27
Total
189
169
328
65
Appendix
Table 8: Per-service API validation status. Impl. = implemented endpoints out of the full API spec. Fixtures = golden request–response pairs captured from real accounts. Conf. tests = automated shape-comparison tests in test_conformance.py . Quirks = documented API-specific behaviors discovered during fixture analysis.
Mechanism
OpenClaw
Gemini CLI
Default exec posture
Deny (sandbox) / Allowlist (host)
Allow (safety checker fails open)
Command restrictions
6 safe bins + strict validation
None (empty-check only)
Inline eval detection
Yes ( python -c , etc.)
No
Deny-wins policy
Structural (deny checked first)
Tier-priority (5 levels)
Approval expiration
30 min default
No expiration
System prompt replaceable
No
Yes ( GEMINI_SYSTEM_MD )
Appendix
Table 9: Safety-relevant architectural differences between OpenClaw and Gemini CLI.
Figure 4: Google Calendar UI used in the environment.
Figure 5: Google Drive UI used in the environment.
Figure 6: Google Doc UI used in the environment.
Figure 7: Google Email UI used in the environment.
Figure 8: Slack UI used in the environment.
Harness
Model
–/–
–/mt
sk/–
sk/mt
Design
OpenClaw
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
✓
✓
✓
✓
full 2×2
OpenClaw
Gemini 3.1 Pro
✓
✓
✓
✓
full 2×2
OpenClaw
Claude Sonnet 4.6
✓
✓
✓
✓
full 2×2
OpenClaw
Claude Opus 4.6
✓
✓
corners
OpenClaw
GPT-5.4
✓
✓
corners
OpenClaw
GLM-5
✓
✓
✓
3 cells
Appendix
Table 10: Experimental coverage matrix. Each cell indicates whether a condition was run (✓) or not. Five combinations have a full 2×2 factorial; five have only corner conditions; one has three cells.
Harness
Model
Sk
Mt
TSR
UAR
SCR
OpenClaw
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
✗
✗
0%
[0,0]
0%
[0,0]
0%
[0,0]
OpenClaw
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
✗
✓
26%
[12,40]
17%
[9,27]
15%
[6,24]
OpenClaw
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
✓
✗
22%
[12,32]
18%
[11,27]
8%
[3,15]
OpenClaw
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
✓
✓
39%
[21,57]
23%
[11,35]
26%
[12,41]
OpenClaw
Gemini 3.1 Pro
✗
✗
8%
[2,16]
4%
[0,12]
2%
[0,4]
OpenClaw
Gemini 3.1 Pro
✗
✓
62%
[43,79]
14%
[4,27]
49%
[32,68]
Appendix
Table 11: Full results across all 33 conditions, grouped by harness. Sk = Domain Skills; Mt = Meta Prompt. TSR = Task Success Rate (non-safety, ≥0.8 ). UAR = Unsafe Action Rate (safety, <0 ). SCR = Safe Completion Rate (safety, ≥0.8 ). Task-level cluster bootstrap 95% CIs in brackets.
Harness
Model
Skill
p
Meta
p
Inter.
p
OpenClaw
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
+ 22pp
.001
+ 26pp
.002
− 9pp
.378
OpenClaw
Gemini 3.1 Pro
+ 47pp
< .001
+ 54pp
.001
− 51pp
.001
OpenClaw
Claude Sonnet 4.6
+ 58pp
.001
+ 58pp
.001
− 60pp
< .001
Gemini CLI
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
+ 24pp
.004
+ 25pp
.001
− 10pp
.296
Claude Code
Claude Sonnet 4.6
+ 46pp
.001
+ 49pp
.001
− 44pp
.003
Appendix
Table 12: TSR main effects and interaction from the 2×2 factorial (Holm-corrected p -values). Interaction is negative when combining scaffolds yields less than the sum of individual effects.
off/off
on/on
Model
TSR
UAR
SCR
TSR
UAR
SCR
Claude Opus 4.6
0%
0%
0%
63%
23%
50%
GLM-5
3%
0%
1%
60%
23%
48%
Gemini 3.1 Pro
8%
4%
2%
58%
10%
48%
Claude Sonnet 4.6
0%
0%
1%
56%
13%
48%
GPT-5.4
1%
0%
0%
53%
7%
41%
Appendix
Table 13: Model ranking on OpenClaw. At off/off, all models are near-floor. At on/on, the top five cluster at 53–63% TSR with no pairwise comparison surviving Holm correction.
Table 15: Single-service vs. multi-service task performance.
k
Half
TSR
UAR
SCR
10
5
.933 (.036)
.843 (.060)
.897 (.049)
20
10
.966 (.017)
.917 (.030)
.947 (.025)
30
15
.977 (.012)
.943 (.020)
.964 (.016)
Appendix
Table 16: Split-half reliability (mean rSB over 1,000 bootstrap splits) as a function of the total number of repeats k per task. Each split uses equal halves of k/2 .
Harness / Model
–/–
–/mt
sk/–
sk/mt
Gemini CLI / Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
0.0%
6.8%
26.4%
18.6%
OpenClaw / Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
0.0%
9.5%
10.0%
12.7%
OpenClaw / Gemini 3.1 Pro
2.3%
7.7%
10.0%
5.5%
OpenClaw / Claude Sonnet 4.6
0.0%
8.2%
5.0%
7.3%
OpenClaw / Claude Opus 4.6
0.0%
13.2%
OpenClaw / GPT-5.4
0.0%
3.7%
Appendix
Table 17: Safety-violation rates (% of trials with negative scores) by harness/model and condition. Columns denote skills-on/off × meta-on/off conditions.
Error Type
No sk/mt
Meta only
Skills only
Both
HTTP 400
0.01
2.37
0.36
1.46
Gateway closed
0.13
0.00
0.03
0.01
Permission denied
0.14
0.23
0.09
0.16
GWS validationError
0.01
1.63
0.31
1.19
Appendix
Table 18: Mean per-run error counts by type and condition (all 33 conditions, 6,702 runs).
Harness
Model
Sk/Mt
Dur. (s)
TC
TO
OpenClaw
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
✗
44
4.0
1.4%
OpenClaw
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
✓
71
14.1
0.9%
OpenClaw
Gemini 3.1 Pro
✗
92
4.5
5.9%
OpenClaw
Gemini 3.1 Pro
✓
251
14.2
30.0%
OpenClaw
Claude Sonnet 4.6
✗
45
2.3
0.0%
OpenClaw
Claude Sonnet 4.6
✓
116
11.8
1.8%
Appendix
Table 19: Effort statistics at off/off and on/on conditions. Dur. = mean duration in seconds. TC = mean tool calls. TO = timeout rate.
Condition
Early surrender
Highest model
sks-off / meta-off
39–65%
GLM-5/Claude Code (62%)
sks-on / meta-on
0.5–7%
GLM-5/OpenClaw (7%)
Appendix
Table 20: Early surrender rates ( ≤ 3 steps, no productive action) by scaffolding level. Range spans all 11 harness–model combinations at each level.
Model
Harness
Probing
Total
Rate
GPT-5.4
Codex
177
221
80%
GLM-5
OpenClaw
110
182
60%
GLM-5
Claude Code
65
245
27%
Claude Opus 4.6
OpenClaw
55
207
27%
Gemini 3.1 Pro
OpenClaw
52
209
25%
Claude Sonnet 4.6
OpenClaw
44
220
20%
Appendix
Table 21: Infrastructure probing rates at baseline (sks-off / meta-off). A trajectory is counted as probing if it contains ≥ 1 of: curl to localhost, env / printenv , openapi.json fetch, credential file search, or harness binary inspection.
Model
Harness
env
sqlite3
openapi
curl+localhost
GPT-5.4
Codex
54
150
205
1,471
Claude Sonnet 4.6
OpenClaw
82
0
15
377
GLM-5
Claude Code
70
0
11
542
GLM-5
OpenClaw
7
4
0
361
Gemini 3.1 Pro
OpenClaw
85
7
7
411
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
OpenClaw
11
1
0
209
Appendix
Table 22: Sandbox escalation tool-call counts across all conditions, by escalation category. Counts are total tool calls (not trajectories) exhibiting each pattern.
Model
Harness
Violation rate
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
Gemini CLI
9/10 (90%)
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
OpenClaw
6/9 (67%)
Gemini 3.1 Pro
OpenClaw
3/7 (43%)
GLM-5
OpenClaw
3/10 (30%)
GLM-5
Claude Code
1/5 (20%)
GPT-5.4
Codex
1/5 (20%)
Appendix
Table 23: Prompt injection compliance rates on multi-doc-embedded-override (document comment injection, sks-on conditions). Violation = agent deleted the Data Retention section as instructed by the embedded comment.