When the Consumer Is an Agent: Execution-Grounded Service-Level Agreements

Abstract:Large language model (LLM) agents increasingly act as service consumers. They select operations and report whether a task is complete. In an asynchronous distributed service, an accepted call or immediate state read does not establish that the required state became observable by its deadline. We introduce execution-grounded completion contracts, which treat completion as a service-level outcome. An independent control plane observes a deadline-bound service-state predicate, admits completion, and directs recovery while the agent performs the task. We evaluate placement and deletion in a live multi-provider data service with heterogeneous models and an injected transfer delay. Across policies, some tasks that missed the deadline were accepted and some that met it were rejected. Under enforcement, accepted completions remained consistent with later observations; all included healthy tasks completed, and unresolved faulted tasks terminated as unverified. The results show that completion of these tasks can be governed by independent observation of service state rather than by the agent's self-assessment. Submission history Access Paper: View PDF HTML (experimental) TeX Source Additional Features Audio Summary Current browse context: References & Citations Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Bookmark Institution arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs.