OptionWorld: A Benchmark for Diagnosing Failures of LLMs as Long-Term Personal Assistants
Organizations: University of British Columbia · University of Chicago · Independent Researcher · Princeton University
Abstract
Long-term assistants must follow unfinished tasks across days as information and circumstances change. Finding information or starting an action, however, does not ensure that the task gets completed. We introduce OptionWorld, a benchmark that traces information acquisition, judgments, actions, and outcomes in simulated daily-life tasks to identify where current LLMs fall short as long-term personal assistants. In runs with archived decision inputs, the key facts remain in the model's last input before the deadline in 35.5% of failed instances. Failure analysis identifies the three most frequent problems: needed information is not obtained or combined, available opportunities to act go unused, and agents impose restrictions that the task does not require. Three follow-up experiments show that supplying missing facts restores task success in some cases; action reminders can restart work while subsequent steps still miss the deadline; and correcting a supplied note that wrongly forbids contact restores permitted inquiry. These findings locate shortcomings in maintaining task state: connecting facts to unfinished work, following through before deadlines, and separating actual restrictions from the agent's assumptions.
Figures & tables
| Agent capabilities | Failure analysis | |||||||
| Benchmark | Need discovery | State tracking | Active search | Constraints & deadlines | Access vs. judgment | Judgment– outcome link | Decision-input facts | Repeated success |
| -bench ( 2024 ) | ||||||||
| LongMemEvalV2 ( 2026 ) | ||||||||
| PM-Bench ( 2026 ) | ||||||||
| ChronosBench ( 2026 ) | ||||||||
| VitaBench 2.0 ( 2026 ) | ||||||||
| System | Source access ( ) | Risk hypothesis ( ) | Grounded discovery ( ) | Timely grounded ( ) | Intervention delivered ( ) | Target success ( / OPR) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek | 96.5% | 86.3% | 80.6% | 78.1% | 57.1% | |
| Fable | 84.9% | 60.2% | 55.0% | 54.9% | 40.6% | |
| Gemini | 87.5% | 56.2% | 49.7% | 48.1% | 37.5% | |
| Grok | 86.8% | 58.9% | 50.7% | 50.2% | 28.0% | |
| Qwen | 81.4% | 63.0% | 54.7% | 54.3% | 40.8% | |
| Astra (Codex) | 85.1% | 80.7% | 78.5% | 77.8% | 68.6% |
| System | Information gap | Action selection / adjustment | Self- restriction | State / update error | Execution error | Insufficient evidence | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek | 296 | 18.6% | 16.2% | 20.6% | 13.9% | 1.7% | 29.1% |
| Fable | 367 | 46.3% | 10.1% | 23.4% | 4.9% | 0.3% | 15.0% |
| Gemini | 364 | 35.2% | 23.4% | 9.3% | 6.3% | 2.7% | 23.1% |
| Grok | 373 | 13.7% | 47.7% | 22.3% | 3.8% | 0.8% | 11.8% |
| Qwen | 325 | 24.9% | 12.9% | 29.8% | 7.4% | 6.2% | 18.8% |
| Astra (Codex) | 211 | 46.9% | 10.4% | 2.4% | 1.4% | 0.0% | 38.9% |
Appendix figures & tables28 assets
Supplementary material from the paper’s appendix.
Appendix
| Pattern | Targets |
|---|---|
| Single-record constraint | 29 |
| Cross-record conflict | 33 |
| Cross-day accumulation | 32 |
| Missing expected event | 31 |
| Clarification before action | 32 |
| Preference or multi-party decision | 35 |
| System | Recorded model identifier | Execution route |
|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek | deepseek/deepseek-v4-pro-0813 | DeepSeek official API |
| Fable | anthropic/claude-fable-5.1 | OpenRouter / Anthropic |
| Gemini | google/gemini-3.1-pro-preview-customtools | OpenRouter / Google AI Studio |
| Grok | x-ai/grok-4.6 | OpenRouter / xAI |
| Qwen | qwen/qwen3.8-max-0902 | OpenRouter / Alibaba |
| Astra (Codex) | gpt-6-astra-pro-local (local slot) | Local subagent bridge |
| Operation | Per day | Per horizon |
|---|---|---|
| Read source | 4 | 54 |
| Inspect object | 2 | 46 |
| Compare objects | 1 | 24 |
| Contact stakeholder | 1 | — |
| Request confirmation | 1 | — |
| External commitment | 1 | — |
| Tool | Inputs | Return or effect |
|---|---|---|
| read_source | Source ID | Opens the source and its linked object IDs. |
| inspect_object | Object ID | Returns object fields after its source has been opened. |
| compare_objects | Two object IDs | Returns recorded similarities and differences. |
| lookup_process | Matter, evidence, lookup objective | Returns a registered procedure, operation ID, and applicable deadline or request type. |
| save_memory | Summary, provenance | Saves a cross-day note. |
| register_watchpoint | Condition, source scope | Saves a condition for later monitoring. |
| Judgment | Agreement | Cohen’s |
|---|---|---|
| Recognition ( ) | 785/792 (99.1%) | 0.971 |
| Grounding ( ) | 786/792 (99.2%) | 0.978 |
| Intervention eligibility | 729/792 (92.0%) | 0.829 |
| Day | Index | Recorded event | Scoring implication |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | 45 | Inspection of obj-0008 : “receipt includes commercial plan”; follow-up expected by Day 8. | Successful acquisition supports . |
| 8 | 57 | Inspection of obj-0025 : “console shows personal plan”; the ledger is complete through Day 8 with no matching follow-up. Neither record replaces the other. | Both substantive records are now acquired. |
| 8 | 62 | A correction request cites both objects, identifies the conflict, and asks the software licensing desk to reconcile the records. The environment returns contact-0001 . | Both reviewers support ; delivery alone does not give . |
| 9 | 69 | Feedback to contact-0001 returns the materials and asks for a corrected case-reference field derived from an inspected object. | The initial request has not resolved the issue. |
| 10 | 97 | A revised request supplies the case reference and its source field, cites the returned feedback and both objects, and receives contact-0002 . | A second grounded, timely, authorized delivery supports . |
| 11 | 107 | Feedback replies to contact-0002 , names the matching target effect, includes both evidence IDs, and reports authoritative issue resolution. | The same-receipt outcome link establishes . |
| Target / actions | Evidence and decision | Confirmed score |
|---|---|---|
| Plan mismatch / 62, 97 | Both reviewers accept the grounded requests. Feedback 107 resolves the issue and links to request 97. | . |
| Business name / 112, 134 | Both reviewers accept the clarification requests. Neither has qualifying outcome feedback. A later operation (166) chooses a governing name without authority established by the reply. | , ; no uncertainty. |
| Withholding / 317 | The tool accepts a change, but both reviewers find that selecting a governing tax status is unsupported by the inspected records. | , ; no uncertainty. |
| Residency record / 84 | Reviewer A marks the correction’s appropriateness uncertain; reviewer B does not accept it. The receipt alone cannot settle whether one record may supersede the other. | ; have no confirmed credit and remain uncertain . |
| Work limit / 519 | Reviewer A is uncertain whether changing the governing entry implements a work limit; reviewer B accepts the user-confirmed protective operation. Feedback 528 reports option preservation. | ; the disagreement leaves uncertain, with no confirmed credit . |
| Day | Index | Event | Excerpt |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19 | 286 | Tool rejection | “public process identity does not match the complete visible evidence or complete public evidence state” |
| 19 | 287 | Proposed watchpoint | “so the record set is likely incomplete or the step must be a direct reversible act, not a request to the office.” The watchpoint also proposes waiting for a companion record, but exceeds the length limit and is not saved. |
| 19 | 288 | Saved watchpoint | “Watch for a companion seq0/b or seq2/b entry; read it, re-run lookup, then retry once by day 24 as a direct reversible step, not a request to the office.” |
| 19 | 292 | Saved memory | “execute refused (process identity/evidence mismatch), retry after a companion entry.” |
| 24 | 367 | Later assessment | “No companion entry for obj-0025, so operation-3cc1d15b93ddb3 (by 26) not retried.” |
| System | OPR | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek | 556 | 497 | 464 | 450 | 329 | 278 | 48.3% |
| Fable | 489 | 347 | 317 | 316 | 234 | 208 | 36.1% |
| Gemini | 504 | 324 | 286 | 277 | 216 | 177 | 30.7% |
| Grok | 500 | 339 | 292 | 289 | 161 | 136 | 23.6% |
| Qwen | 469 | 363 | 315 | 313 | 235 | 206 | 35.8% |
| System | Never | Mixed | Always | Ever | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek | 192 | 43 | 112 | 37 | 149 |
| Fable | 192 | 86 | 71 | 35 | 106 |
| Gemini | 192 | 90 | 85 | 17 | 102 |
| Grok | 192 | 118 | 54 | 20 | 74 |
| Qwen | 192 | 88 | 70 | 34 | 104 |
| System | Facts missing | All acquired | |
|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek | 298 | 57 | 241 |
| Fable | 368 | 221 | 147 |
| Gemini | 399 | 196 | 203 |
| Grok | 440 | 236 | 204 |
| Qwen | 370 | 237 | 133 |
| Total | 1875 | 947 | 928 |
| System | Run | Source access ( ) | Risk hypothesis ( ) | Grounded discovery ( ) | Timely grounded ( ) | Intervention delivered ( ) | Target success ( ) | OPR (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek | 1 | 187 | 163 | 153 | 148 | 112 | 105 | 54.7% |
| 2 | 180 | 164 | 152 | 147 | 93 | 64 | 33.3% | |
| 3 | 189 | 170 | 159 | 155 | 124 | 109 | 56.8% | |
| Fable | 1 | 164 | 125 | 116 | 116 | 86 | 77 | 40.1% |
| 2 | 163 | 107 | 98 | 97 | 64 | 58 | 30.2% | |
| 3 | 162 | 115 | 103 | 103 | 84 | 73 | 38.0% |
| World | Run | DeepSeek | Fable | Gemini | Grok | Qwen | Astra (Codex) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Caregiver returning to work | 1 | 17 | 12 | 9 | 12 | 12 | 17 |
| 2 | 16 | 3 | 2 | 13 | 6 | 14 | |
| 3 | 7 | 9 | 7 | 8 | 10 | 19 | |
| Independent creative contractor | 1 | 18 | 11 | 9 | 6 | 11 | 16 |
| 2 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 10 | 12 | 10 | |
| 3 | 10 | 11 | 6 | 8 | 13 | 18 |
| System | Pooled OPR (%) | Three-run range (%) | World-resampling interval (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek | 48.3 | 33.3–56.8 | 40.6–54.9 |
| Fable | 36.1 | 30.2–40.1 | 33.5–38.9 |
| Gemini | 30.7 | 25.0–38.0 | 25.0–37.0 |
| Grok | 23.6 | 18.8–27.6 | 15.8–31.9 |
| Qwen | 35.8 | 30.2–39.6 | 29.2–41.7 |
| Comparison | Difference | Paired interval | W/T/L |
| System | Recorded–permissive |
|---|---|
| DeepSeek | 278–384 |
| Fable | 208–316 |
| Gemini | 177–270 |
| Grok | 136–232 |
| Qwen | 206–369 |
| Scoring assumption | Triplets | Persistent / failed |
|---|---|---|
| Recorded | 960 | 1275/1875 (68.0%) |
| Unambiguous triplets | 538 | 582/883 (65.9%) |
| Extreme permissive | 960 | 582/1309 (44.5%) |
| Cohort | Visible | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| All API | 1295 | 460 | 35.5% |
| Unambiguous subset | 920 | 310 | 33.7% |
| System | Targets | Visible | |
|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek | 384 | 211 | 158 |
| Fable | 384 | 253 | 71 |
| Gemini | 384 | 280 | 62 |
| Grok | 384 | 301 | 107 |
| Qwen | 384 | 250 | 62 |
| System | Information gap | Action selection / adjustment | Self- restriction | State / update error | Execution error | Insufficient evidence | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek | 296 | 55 | 48 | 61 | 41 | 5 | 86 |
| Fable | 367 | 170 | 37 | 86 | 18 | 1 | 55 |
| Gemini | 364 | 128 | 85 | 34 | 23 | 10 | 84 |
| Grok | 373 | 51 | 178 | 83 | 14 | 3 | 44 |
| Qwen | 325 | 81 | 42 | 97 | 24 | 20 | 61 |
| Astra (Codex) | 211 | 99 | 22 | 5 | 3 | 0 | 82 |
| System | All | Normal constraints | Specific problem | Insufficient evidence | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek | 298 | 2 | 296 | 210 | 86 |
| Fable | 368 | 1 | 367 | 312 | 55 |
| Gemini | 399 | 35 | 364 | 280 | 84 |
| Grok | 440 | 67 | 373 | 329 | 44 |
| Qwen | 370 | 45 | 325 | 264 | 61 |
| Astra (Codex) | 221 | 10 | 211 | 129 | 82 |
| Target type | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cross-day accumulation | 480 | 446 | 316 | 303 | 302 | 153 | 153 |
| Cross-source conflict | 495 | 465 | 308 | 277 | 268 | 172 | 172 |
| Missing expected event | 465 | 434 | 324 | 302 | 299 | 276 | 264 |
| Preference / multiple parties | 525 | 510 | 418 | 297 | 289 | 197 | 94 |
| Single-source constraint | 435 | 314 | 233 | 230 | 226 | 143 | 143 |
| Stakeholder clarification | 480 | 349 | 271 | 265 | 261 | 234 | 179 |
| System | All (311) | Unambiguous (139) |
|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek | 161 | 110 |
| Fable | 179 | 103 |
| Gemini | 142 | 87 |
| Grok | 121 | 70 |
| Qwen | 184 | 98 |
| System | Cases | Days left | Comparisons left |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fable | 6 | 6–10 | 11–16 |
| Gemini | 3 | 7–10 | 9–20 |
| Grok | 2 | 9–9 | 17–20 |
| Qwen | 4 | 5–9 | 11–22 |
| Tool | Fable | Qwen |
|---|---|---|
| Read source | 1,252 | 1,687 |
| Inspect object | 1,166 | 1,920 |
| Compare objects | 259 | 241 |
| Look up procedure | 351 | 1,195 |
| Report risk | 286 | 1,337 |
| Register watchpoint | 713 | 1,629 |
| (a) Information support: original target outcome, success / failure / unknown | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Checkpoint (Gemini) | Original | Added facts | Reformatted facts |
| Buyout (R2) | 0 / 3 / 0 | 3 / 0 / 0 | 2 / 1 / 0 |
| Training (R2) | 0 / 2 / 1 | 0 / 1 / 2 | 0 / 0 / 3 |
| Training (R3) | 0 / 3 / 0 | 3 / 0 / 0 | 2 / 0 / 1 |
| Experiment | Checkpoint | World / focal matter | Model (run) | Start day | Deadline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Information | 4c9bfe779e6bb394 | Creative contractor / buyout | Gemini (2) | 46 | 55 |
| b71e084171730d98 | Laid-off worker / training hours | Gemini (2) | 48 | 57 | |
| 7f10db11d4df4f8e | Laid-off worker / training hours | Gemini (3) | 48 | 57 | |
| Action | ca3a58a5edf2b82c | Food business / inspection and pickup | Gemini (2) | 15 | 22 |
| 05cdc677c2bc1e7d | Multigenerational household / shared car | DeepSeek (2) | 16 | 23 |
| Checkpoint | Condition | Authority attempts | Actions | Other outcomes | Requests |
| Information experiment | |||||
| Buyout (R2) | Original | 0–13 | 319 | 24–35 | 371 |
| Buyout (R2) | Added facts | 0–0 | 75 | 24–33 | 118 |
| Buyout (R2) | Reformatted facts | 0–1 | 119 | 22–32 | 166 |
| Training (R2) | Original | 0–1 | 41 | 25–36 | 84 |
| Training (R2) | Added facts | 0–4 | 73 | 23–33 | 116 |
| Current state | Update | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Original world | Matter | Retain | Rewrite | Correct | Retain | Rewrite | Correct |
| Returning caregiver | Childcare funding | 3/10 | 7/10 | 10/10 | 10/10 | 10/10 | 10/10 |
| Newcomer coordinator | Credential account contact | 0/10 | 0/10 | 10/10 | 6/10 | 5/10 | 10/10 |
| Multigenerational household | Co-owner signatures | 0/10 | 0/10 | 10/10 | 6/10 | 6/10 | 10/10 |
| Creative contractor | Insurance timing | 1/10 | 0/10 | 10/10 | 9/10 | 10/10 | 10/10 |
| Retired tenant | Account contact authority | 1/10 | 1/10 | 10/10 | 10/10 | 10/10 | 10/10 |
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Large language model agent evaluation measures whether tool-using systems complete tasks reliably, safely, and efficiently.
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