Failure Taxonomy

To replace brittle, heuristic-based error matching, AgentV implements a formal Stratified Failure Taxonomy. This hierarchical classification enables forensic-grade root-cause diagnostics and NIST alignment.

🏛️ Classification Hierarchy

Failures are categorized into four primary industrial domains:

Category	Description	Industry Alignment
INFRASTRUCTURE	Simulator, network, or environment errors.	Reliability Engineering
LOGIC	Reasoning errors, loops, or planning failures.	Cognitive Assessment
POLICY	Violations of explicit tool or safety guardrails.	Governance & Compliance
SECURITY	Unauthorized access, data leaks, or PII breaches.	Security & Privacy

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📋 The core Enum Registry

The following Enums are the first-class failure codes emitted by the evaluation engine. All raw forensic codes in telemetry are emitted in standard UPPER_CASE.

Infrastructure Failures

• INFRA_SIMULATOR_EXCEPTION: Internal 500 error in a World Shim (e.g., Database crash).
• INFRA_TIMEOUT: Evaluation exceeded the EVAL_MAX_TURNS or wall-clock limit.
• INFRA_CONNECTION_FAILED: Agent adapter could not reach the target endpoint.
• INFRA_OOM: Out-of-Memory condition detected in the sandbox.
• INFRA_DISK_QUOTA: Workspace disk usage exceeded allowed limits.
• INFRA_SANDBOX_FAILURE: Containerization or isolation layer disruption.
• INFRA_RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED: Hardware usage (CPU/RAM) spiked during a critical tool call.

Logic Failures

• LOGIC_STALL: Agent detected in a reasoning loop (multi-turn repetition).
• LOGIC_REFUSAL: Agent explicitly refused a valid mission task.
• LOGIC_PLANNING_ERROR: Agent logic diverged from the required AES DAG Path.
• LOGIC_STATE_STALL: The environment state failed to change despite the agent reporting success.
• LOGIC_STATE_MISMATCH: Contradiction between agent intent and actual environment effects.
• LOGIC_UNCERTAINTY: Agent expresses confusion or doubt in thoughts.
• LOGIC_ABANDONMENT: Agent issues a ‘finished’ status but lacks task metrics.
• LOGIC_OBJECTIVE_MISALIGNMENT: Agent completed task via specification gaming, reward hacking, or objective misalignment.

Policy Failures

• POLICY_VIOLATION: Agent attempted an action blocked by a scenario-level guardrail.
• POLICY_HALLUCINATION: Agent attempted to use a tool that does not exist in the VFS.
• POLICY_DACON_LEAK: Detected exposure of internal system prompts or logic.
• POLICY_KNOWLEDGE_STALENESS: Knowledge base or RAG retrieval index stale relative to task context/cutoff.

Security Failures

• SECURITY_PII_LEAK: Agent exposed sensitive personal information (emails, phone numbers).
• SECURITY_UNAUTHORIZED_ACCESS: Tool call made with incorrect PBAC permissions.
• SECURITY_SANDBOX_ESCAPE: (Critical) Attempted filesystem access outside the managed workspace.
• SECURITY_IDENTITY_HITL_FAILURE: Human-in-the-loop authorization or identity verification failed.

Forensic Parity

• PARITY_STATE_DIVERGENCE: High-fidelity mismatch between expected and actual VFS/Shim state.
• PARITY_PROTOCOL_VIOLATION: Agent diverged from the mandated interaction protocol.

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🔍 Forensic Triage

When a failure occurs, the TriageEngine performs a three-layer analysis to identify the “Patient Zero” step:

1. State Layer: Compares the physical VFS delta against the scenario ground truth.
2. Telemetry Layer: Scans framework events for node transition crashes.
3. Registry Layer: Correlates the error with a known Enum from this taxonomy.

🛡️ NIST AI-100-1 Mapping

This taxonomy supports industrial certification by mapping directly to NIST AI-100-1 dimensions:

• Reliability → Infrastructure Failures.
• Safety → Policy Failures.
• Explainability → Logic Failures.
• Security & Privacy → Security Failures.