enterprise automation developers

Abstract: Vision-language models (VLMs) are increasingly deployed in multi-agent systems to automate complex computer-use workflows, yet existing benchmarks mostly assume consistent, cooperative environments. In contrast, real-world collaboration rarely runs on consistent information: peer or sub-agents frequently report outdated states, issue contradictory instructions, or compete over shared permissions and files, forcing agents to check others' outputs and verify ground truth in the environment. Evaluating such conflict resolution remains challenging: manual authoring cannot scale across complex systems, while unconstrained LLM generation produces narrative drift, answer leakage, and unsatisfiable rubrics. We introduce CLASHarness (Conflict-Loaded Agent Scenario Harness), a controllable framework for generating verifiable multi-agent conflicts in computer use, with a benchmark of 600 multi-round tasks. By combining hierarchical scenario planning with an eight-step verified micro-pipeline, CLASHarness pre-commits decisive visual facts before rendering and compiles hybrid code and semantic graders directly from executed reference trajectories, guaranteeing every task is solvable by construction. Evaluating 15 frontier models on CLASHarness reveals three core bottlenecks. First, when sub-agent outputs conflict with the environment, weaker models blindly follow misleading information, whereas stronger models inspect visual evidence to verify ground truth. Second, resolving conflicts is much harder than finding them: while agents can spot inconsistencies, actively fixing system state drops task success significantly. Third, coordination protocols remain a universal bottleneck: even frontier models fail over 58% of closing actions, often forgetting to release shared locks or hand off tasks. CLASHarness provides a scalable, verifiable foundation for building reliable multi-agent systems.

Abstract: Approval mechanisms have become a primary safeguard for consequential actions in LLM-agent software. Yet the action shown for approval is often not the object ultimately consumed: workflow reload, transcript projection, argument rebinding, and durable-state lookup may reconstruct it before execution. Existing fieldflow and check-coverage analyses can establish that expected fields were inspected, but not that the inspected object version reaches the sink or that no replacement intervenes between check and use. Consequently, a locally complete repair may still leave a residual authorization bypass after reconstruction. We address this problem through three designs. (1) We formulate reconstruction-stable authorization (ReSA) over representation transitions, sink dependencies, consumed versions, and grant scope. (2) We derive obligations that judge candidate repairs and expose residual sink suffixes. (3) We implement the analysis in APAS-Finder and freeze predictions before an independent sink oracle observes execution. Predictions agree with all 28 controlled outcomes. Four matched pairs require opposite judgments despite identical field-flow and check coverage; a CodeQL composite recovers all eight when supplied object flow, dominance, interference, and the same grant contract. Two analysts agree on all four model-validation dispositions and 19/20 sink dependencies. On released consumers, five repairs prevent 60/60 tested out-of-scope effects, while three mechanism contrasts expose the predicted residual effects. Repair sufficiency therefore depends on the reconstructed action consumed, not merely on an approval record or earlier checked representation.