Benchmark Almanac

AgentIF (2026-10 setting)

DeepSeek-V4-Pro 67.4% leads since Oct 2026 Not in model cards

Models follow the same AgentIF instructions in thinking and non-thinking modes with vendor decoding settings. A gpt-5.6-luna judge scores 3 runs per model.

The maker says scores under this setting are not comparable with the original setting. It also fixed several constraint checkers.

In the authors’ words

Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated advanced capabilities in real-world agentic applications. Growing research efforts aim to develop LLM-based agents to address practical demands, introducing a new challenge: agentic scenarios often involve lengthy instructions with complex constraints, such as extended system prompts and detailed tool specifications. While adherence to such instructions is crucial for agentic applications, whether LLMs can reliably follow them remains underexplored. In this paper, we introduce AgentIF, the first benchmark for systematically evaluating LLM instruction following ability in agentic scenarios. AgentIF features three key characteristics: (1) Realistic, constructed from 50 real-world agentic applications. (2) Long, averaging 1,723 words with a maximum of 15,630 words. (3) Complex, averaging 11.9 constraints per instruction, covering diverse constraint types, such as tool specifications and condition constraints. To construct AgentIF, we collect 707 human-annotated instructions across 50 agentic tasks from industrial application agents and open-source agentic systems. For each instruction, we annotate the associated constraints and corresponding evaluation metrics, including code-based evaluation, LLM-based evaluation, and hybrid code-LLM evaluation. We use AgentIF to systematically evaluate existing advanced LLMs. We observe that current models generally perform poorly, especially in handling complex constraint structures and tool specifications. We further conduct error analysis and analytical experiments on instruction length and meta constraints, providing some findings about the failure modes of existing LLMs. We have released the code and data to facilitate future research.

Abstract of AGENTIF: Benchmarking Instruction Following of Large Language Models in Agentic Scenarios (arXiv:2505.16944, CC0)
Made by Tsinghua University KEG (THU-KEG) Released Oct 2026 Following precise instructions All tasks public Last model added Oct 2026 Scores refreshed 2 Nov 2026
Level
Everyday Most adults, without training
Scored
Graded by a model A language model scores each response, usually against a rubric.
Answers
Open-ended Free-form text, documents, designs or media judged as a whole.
24
Models scored on its own leaderboard

DeepSeek-V4-Pro leads with 67.4%

Best score per model from the benchmark's own leaderboard, read on 2 Nov 2026. Where a model ran with several settings or harnesses, we keep its best. Every run is in the next chart.

  1. 1 DeepSeek-V4-Pro thinking 67.4%
  2. 2 Qwen 3.8 27B thinking 65.8%
  3. 3 Qwen3.8 Flash thinking 65.6%
  4. 4 Qwen3.5-9B thinking 65.3%
  5. 5 Kimi K3 thinking 64.9%
  6. 6 Gemma 4 31B IT thinking 64.8%
  7. 7 Nemotron 3.5 Bolt E4B non-thinking 64.7%
  8. 8 GLM-5.3-Flash thinking 64.4%
  9. 9 GLM-5.3 thinking 64.2%
  10. 10 Gemma 4 12B thinking 63.2%
  11. 11 Gemma 4 E4B non-thinking 63%
  12. 12 Qwen3.5-4B thinking 62.3%
  13. 13 MiniMax-M2.7 thinking 61.9%
  14. 14 nvidia-nemotron-nano-9b-v2 thinking 61.2%
  15. 15 Gemma 4 E2B thinking 61%
  16. 16 deepseek-r1-0528-qwen3-8b thinking 59.9%
  17. 17 Granite 4.2 3B thinking 58.8%
  18. 18 Nemotron 3 Nano 4B non-thinking 58.5%
  19. 19 Ministral 3 3B Instruct non-thinking 55.9%
  20. 20 Qwen3.5-2B thinking 55.8%
  21. 21 gpt-oss-20b thinking 55%
  22. 22 Hunyuan-4B-Instruct thinking 54.4%
  23. 23 MiniCPM5-2B thinking 54.2%
  24. 24 Ministral 3 3B Reasoning thinking 53.8%
#ModelScoreSettingDateSource
1 DeepSeek-V4-Pro 67.4% thinking Apr 2026 Official leaderboard
2 Qwen 3.8 27B 65.8% thinking Aug 2026 Official leaderboard
3 Qwen3.8 Flash 65.6% thinking Aug 2026 Official leaderboard
4 Qwen3.5-9B 65.3% thinking Feb 2026 Official leaderboard
5 Kimi K3 64.9% thinking Jul 2026 Official leaderboard
6 Gemma 4 31B IT 64.8% thinking Apr 2026 Official leaderboard
7 Nemotron 3.5 Bolt E4B 64.7% non-thinking Oct 2026 Official leaderboard
8 GLM-5.3-Flash 64.4% thinking Aug 2026 Official leaderboard
9 GLM-5.3 64.2% thinking Aug 2026 Official leaderboard
10 Gemma 4 12B 63.2% thinking Jun 2026 Official leaderboard
11 Gemma 4 E4B 63% non-thinking Mar 2026 Official leaderboard
12 Qwen3.5-4B 62.3% thinking Feb 2026 Official leaderboard
13 MiniMax-M2.7 61.9% thinking Mar 2026 Official leaderboard
14 nvidia-nemotron-nano-9b-v2 61.2% thinking Aug 2025 Official leaderboard
15 Gemma 4 E2B 61% thinking Mar 2026 Official leaderboard
16 deepseek-r1-0528-qwen3-8b 59.9% thinking May 2025 Official leaderboard
17 Granite 4.2 3B 58.8% thinking Aug 2026 Official leaderboard
18 Nemotron 3 Nano 4B 58.5% non-thinking Mar 2026 Official leaderboard
19 Ministral 3 3B Instruct 55.9% non-thinking Dec 2025 Official leaderboard
20 Qwen3.5-2B 55.8% thinking Feb 2026 Official leaderboard
21 gpt-oss-20b 55% thinking Aug 2025 Official leaderboard
22 Hunyuan-4B-Instruct 54.4% thinking Jul 2025 Official leaderboard
23 MiniCPM5-2B 54.2% thinking Sep 2026 Official leaderboard
24 Ministral 3 3B Reasoning 53.8% thinking Dec 2025 Official leaderboard

Scores at each effort level

Models the leaderboard ran at two or more effort levels. We don’t have enough cost data here to say what the extra effort costs.

Lowest effort to highest, light to dark
Qwen 3.8 27B
non-thinking thinking
65.8%
Qwen3.8 Flash
non-thinking thinking
65.6%
Qwen3.5-9B
non-thinking thinking
65.3%
Gemma 4 31B IT
non-thinking
64.8%
Nemotron 3.5 Bolt E4B
thinking non-thinking
64.7%
Gemma 4 12B
non-thinking
63.2%
Gemma 4 E4B
thinking non-thinking
63%
Qwen3.5-4B
non-thinking thinking
62.3%
nvidia-nemotron-nano-9b-v2
non-thinking
61.2%
Gemma 4 E2B
non-thinking
61%
Granite 4.2 3B
non-thinking thinking
58.8%
Nemotron 3 Nano 4B
thinking non-thinking
58.5%
ModelEffortHarnessScoreCost per taskOutput tokens
DeepSeek-V4-Pro thinking 67.4%
Qwen 3.8 27B thinking 65.8%
Qwen3.8 Flash thinking 65.6%
Qwen3.5-9B thinking 65.3%
Kimi K3 thinking 64.9%
Gemma 4 31B IT thinking 64.8%
Nemotron 3.5 Bolt E4B non-thinking 64.7%
Gemma 4 31B IT non-thinking 64.7%
GLM-5.3-Flash thinking 64.4%
GLM-5.3 thinking 64.2%
Nemotron 3.5 Bolt E4B thinking 63.6%
Qwen3.5-9B non-thinking 63.6%
Qwen3.8 Flash non-thinking 63.4%
Gemma 4 12B thinking 63.2%
Gemma 4 E4B non-thinking 63%
Gemma 4 12B non-thinking 62.4%
Qwen3.5-4B thinking 62.3%
Qwen 3.8 27B non-thinking 62%
MiniMax-M2.7 thinking 61.9%
Gemma 4 E4B thinking 61.6%
nvidia-nemotron-nano-9b-v2 thinking 61.2%
Gemma 4 E2B thinking 61%
Qwen3.5-4B non-thinking 61%
nvidia-nemotron-nano-9b-v2 non-thinking 60.4%
Gemma 4 E2B non-thinking 60.3%
deepseek-r1-0528-qwen3-8b thinking 59.9%
Granite 4.2 3B thinking 58.8%
Nemotron 3 Nano 4B non-thinking 58.5%
Ministral 3 3B Instruct non-thinking 55.9%
Qwen3.5-2B thinking 55.8%
Nemotron 3 Nano 4B thinking 55.6%
Granite 4.2 3B non-thinking 55.2%
gpt-oss-20b thinking 55%
Hunyuan-4B-Instruct thinking 54.4%
MiniCPM5-2B thinking 54.2%
Ministral 3 3B Reasoning thinking 53.8%
MiniCPM5-2B non-thinking 52.4%
Qwen3.5-2B non-thinking 50.1%
Hunyuan-4B-Instruct non-thinking 43.9%

Number one over time

Lab claims count from the day the card came out, independent runs from the model’s release.

DeepSeek
Own leaderboard 1 leader

Scores over time

All the scores we have, one dot each, so a model tested at several settings appears more than once.

On the benchmark’s own leaderboard Best so far
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 2025 2026 2027 Near the ceiling (85%) DeepSeek-V4-Pro nvidia-nemotron-nano-9b-v2 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 2025 2026 2027 Near the ceiling (85%) DeepSeek-V4-Pro nvidia-nemotron-nano-9b-v2

No lab model card reports it yet

We read the headline results of 479 launch posts from 51 labs, and none of them list this benchmark.

Versions

We switch the top row to each new version when it comes out. Open it for one row per version. An old version stays in play while people still test it, so whoever first takes it past 85% gets credit for closing it out.

OpenAI DeepSeek
AgentIF (2026-10 setting) 2 leaders
AgentIF 1 leader
o1-mini 59.8%

More in Instructions and chat

All 76 in Instructions and chat
  • IFEval In use Models answer about 500 prompts containing verifiable instructions such as word limits or required keywords. Code checks each instruction for strict and loose accuracy. Gemma 4 31B IT 98.9%
  • IFBench In use 58 new out-of-domain verifiable output constraints. Scored by programmatic constraint checks (strict or loose). Nemotron-Cascade 2 30B-A3B 82.9%
  • MultiChallenge In use Multi-turn conversations testing instruction retention, inference memory, versioned editing and self-coherence. Graded by LLM judge with rubrics. GPT-6.1 Sol 82%
  • Multi-IF In use Models follow verifiable instructions over three-turn conversations in eight languages, extending IFEval. Scored by instruction accuracy at each turn. LFM3-1.7B 89.1%
  • AdvancedIF In use Models respond to over 1,600 prompts with complex, multi-turn, and system-level instructions. A judge model checks each response against expert-written rubrics. MAI-Thinking-1 85%
  • IFStruct In use Models generate JSON or YAML that must follow a requested schema and phrasing constraints, without constrained decoding. A response passes only if every structural constraint holds. LFM3-1.7B 93.7%