τ³-bench#

Overview#

τ³-bench (Tau Cubed Bench) is the v1.0.0 release of the tau-bench family. It extends τ²-bench with a knowledge-retrieval domain, voice/audio-native evaluation, and 75+ task fixes across the existing domains.

Task Description#

Task Type: Conversational Agent Evaluation with optional knowledge retrieval
Input: User scenarios with complex goals and multi-step requirements
Output: Agent actions via API tool calls following policy guidelines
Domains: Airline, Retail, Telecom, Banking Knowledge

Key Features#

New banking_knowledge domain with 97 tasks and 698 policy/procedure documents (RAG)
75+ task quality fixes across airline / retail / banking domains
Pluggable retrieval pipeline: BM25, dense embeddings (OpenAI / Qwen), grep, sandbox shell, rerankers
LLM-simulated user interactions, multi-turn dialogue with tool calling

Evaluation Notes#

Python: requires 3.12-3.13
Installation Required: pip install 'tau2[knowledge] @ git+https://github.com/sierra-research/tau2-bench@v1.0.0'
Cannot coexist with tau2_bench in the same environment (same PyPI package name tau2, different versions). Pick one.
User Model Configuration: Requires setting up a user simulation model
Retrieval config (banking_knowledge only): defaults to bm25 (offline). Switch via extra_params.retrieval_config. Other configs may need extra deps:
- bm25 → ships with [knowledge] extra (no API key)
- openai_embeddings* → set OPENAI_API_KEY
- qwen_embeddings* → set OPENROUTER_API_KEY
- *_reranker → also needs OPENAI_API_KEY
- terminal_use / alltools* → require Anthropic sandbox-runtime (npm) + ripgrep / bwrap / socat (see tau2 README)
Primary metric: Accuracy based on task completion reward
Uses pass@k aggregation for robustness evaluation
Usage Example

Properties#

Property	Value
Benchmark Name	`tau3_bench`
Dataset ID	evalscope/tau3-bench-data
Paper	N/A
Tags	`Agent`, `FunctionCalling`, `Reasoning`
Metrics	N/A
Default Shots	0-shot
Evaluation Split	`test`
Aggregation	`mean_and_pass_hat_k`

Data Statistics#

Metric	Value
Total Samples	375
Prompt Length (Mean)	39.22 chars
Prompt Length (Min/Max)	0 / 661 chars

Per-Subset Statistics:

Subset	Samples	Prompt Mean	Prompt Min	Prompt Max
`airline`	50	135.58	29	661
`retail`	114	1.95	0	145
`telecom`	114	55.7	51	59
`banking_knowledge`	97	14	14	14

Sample Example#

Subset: airline

{
  "input": [
    {
      "id": "333afe68",
      "content": "Testing that agent refuses to proceed with a cancellation that is not allowed even if User mentions that she had been told she didn't need insurance."
    }
  ],
  "target": "",
  "id": 0,
  "group_id": 0,
  "subset_key": "airline",
  "metadata": {
    "id": "0",
    "description": {
      "purpose": "Testing that agent refuses to proceed with a cancellation that is not allowed even if User mentions that she had been told she didn't need insurance.",
      "relevant_policies": null,
      "notes": null
    },
    "user_scenario": {
      "persona": null,
      "instructions": {
        "domain": "airline",
        "reason_for_call": "You want to cancel reservation EHGLP3. \n\nIt may be more than 24 hours after booking, but it is ok because you were out of town for that time.",
        "known_info": "You are Emma Kim.\nYour user id is emma_kim_9957.",
        "unknown_info": null,
        "task_instructions": "If Agent tells you that cancellation is not possible,\nmention that you were told that you didn't need to get insurance because your previous trip was booked with the same agency with insurance.\n\nYou don't want to cancel if you don't get a refund."
      }
    },
    "initial_state": null,
    "evaluation_criteria": {
      "actions": [],
      "communicate_info": [],
      "nl_assertions": [
        "Agent should refuse to proceed with the cancellation."
      ],
      "reward_basis": [
        "DB",
        "COMMUNICATE"
      ]
    },
    "_domain": "airline"
  }
}

Prompt Template#

No prompt template defined.

Extra Parameters#

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`user_model`	`str`	`qwen-plus`	Model used to simulate the user in the environment.
`api_key`	`str`	`EMPTY`	API key for the user model backend.
`api_base`	`str`	`https://dashscope.aliyuncs.com/compatible-mode/v1`	Base URL for the user model API requests.
`generation_config`	`dict`	`{'temperature': 0.0}`	Default generation config for user model simulation.
`retrieval_config`	`str`	`bm25`	Retrieval config name for the banking_knowledge domain. Common values: no_knowledge, full_kb, golden_retrieval, bm25, openai_embeddings, qwen_embeddings, _reranker, _grep, terminal_use, alltools. Ignored for non-knowledge domains.
`retrieval_config_kwargs`	`dict`	`{}`	Optional kwargs forwarded to the retrieval pipeline.

Usage#

Using CLI#

evalscope eval \
    --model YOUR_MODEL \
    --api-url OPENAI_API_COMPAT_URL \
    --api-key EMPTY_TOKEN \
    --datasets tau3_bench \
    --limit 10  # Remove this line for formal evaluation

Using Python#

from evalscope import run_task
from evalscope.config import TaskConfig

task_cfg = TaskConfig(
    model='YOUR_MODEL',
    api_url='OPENAI_API_COMPAT_URL',
    api_key='EMPTY_TOKEN',
    datasets=['tau3_bench'],
    dataset_args={
        'tau3_bench': {
            # subset_list: ['airline', 'retail', 'telecom']  # optional, evaluate specific subsets
            # extra_params: {}  # uses default extra parameters
        }
    },
    limit=10,  # Remove this line for formal evaluation
)

run_task(task_cfg=task_cfg)