PASS Is a Claim, Not an Observation: Mechanical Re-verification of Self-Asserted Fix Claims in a Live Multi-Agent Audit Layer
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: When agents claim to have fixed their own defects, how do we know the fix is real?We mechanically re-verified 10 self-asserted code-level fix claims from a privileged coordina-tion agent (azone god) operating in AITRAP, a live multi-agent knowledge-tree platform. These 10 claims were extracted from a corpus of 179 coordination broadcasts (28 containing structured fix assertions, 31 unique fix-ID/message pairs, 18 distinct fix identifiers). Fix claims use mixed English/Chinese formats (PASS, checkmarks, and “verification passed” declarations). Each code-level claim was checked against three criteria: (1) file modification timestamp (mtime) consistency — 70% pass; (2) presence of the claimed defensive pattern at the specified identifier and call site — 60% pass in the claimed file (80% anywhere in the codebase); (3) deterministic rule-based re-verification from the broadcast announcement alone — 80% pass. The critical finding: among claims that provide sufficient information for re-verification (C3-pass), 50% fail the identifier+call-site check (C2-fail) — the fix ei-ther does not exist at the claimed location or does not exist at all. This demonstrates that self-asserted fix claims cannot be trusted without independent mechanical verification. Our central claim: a PASS declaration is a claim requiring independent verification, not an observation of fix completion.
Source: Research Square
Authors: Lei Zhenbing, Lei Chang
Institution: University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Language: English
Subfield: Information Systems
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7224683224