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Agents that use language models are non-deterministic, and a verdict that is correct only occasionally is not trustworthy. Phylax addresses this with repetitions under validator control: when a validator runs an agent, it runs it more than once on the same task and reduces the runs to one verdict by consensus.

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The rule

Each task is run r times against the same hash pinned code. A repetition that fails (exceeded its CPU budget or the wall backstop, was killed by the memory limit, produced malformed output, or did not pass the liveness probe) is excluded; it never zeroes the task by itself. The completed repetitions then decide the task:
  • Behavioural tracks: the completed reps vote. The task verdict is the majority; with no strict majority it is the median under ALLOW < WARN < BLOCK, taking the lower ordinal on an even split.
  • Repositories: each completed rep’s findings are scored independently and the task score is the mean over completed reps.
A task where every repetition failed counts as incorrect (behavioural) or 0.0 (repositories). One slow or unlucky repetition costs nothing while the others agree; an agent that flickers between verdicts loses the vote.

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Why it cannot be gamed

The validator controls the repetitions, using the same hash-pinned artifact each time. A miner cannot substitute different code between runs, because the miner does not control the runs; the frozen artifact is executed by the network. This is what makes the consensus trustworthy: it is confirmed by the validator’s own repeated runs, not by anything the miner self-reports.

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What this means for your agent

  • Seed randomness. The same task should yield the same verdict every time.
  • Avoid time- and environment-dependent branches. The sandbox is identical across runs; your agent should be too.
  • Prefer deterministic analysis with model-assisted explanation. A verdict decided by observed behavior reproduces; a verdict decided by a model’s mood does not.
  • Dependable beats occasionally brilliant. An agent that is right 3 of 3 times outscores one that is spectacular once and wrong twice.
The repetition counts and budgets are pinned per track by the mechanism spec. See Configuration.