Measuring the Microtask Eligibility Gap: When Is an Off-the-Shelf SLM Enough for an Agent Harness?

arXiv:2610.00025v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Agent harnesses increasingly want to run small language models (SLMs) on the microtasks around a frontier large language model (LLM) planner: auto-approving shell commands, writing memory, selecting tools, ranking past turns. We ask whether off-the-shelf SLMs meet practitioner-defined thresholds and, when they fail, why, and whether quantization changes the answer. We build a benchmark of 4 such microtasks with fixed prompts and automatic metrics, each with a pre-specified threshold $\tau$ anchored to a cheap non-LLM baseline and a CI-aware eligi

This content is for informational purposes only and is not professional advice. Specifications, prices, plan tiers, and features change frequently and may differ from what is shown here; verify current details on the manufacturer's or company's official page before purchasing. Ratings are based on analysis of published documentation, not independent lab testing.