AI evaluation and release assurance

Know whether your AI application is ready to ship.

Run every candidate against versioned cases, compare it with the trusted baseline, and enforce explicit standards for quality, safety, latency, and cost.

Follow the evidence
Release evaluationCandidate v1.9
Illustrative data
Policy decisionInvestigate
Baseline v1.896%Candidate v1.971%
Groundedness rubric

The candidate promises an exception that is absent from the supplied policy.

Unsupported eligibility claim · critical case · release requirement failed
01The missing signal

AI can be wrong
without crashing.

Infrastructure monitoring can confirm that a system responded. It cannot tell you whether the answer was accurate, safe, grounded, useful, or better than the version it replaced.

Traditional monitoring seesRevalte also sees

The request returned successfully.

The response was correct, grounded, and useful.

Latency stayed below the service timeout.

Latency stayed inside this workflow’s release budget.

No exception was recorded.

No critical safety case or required behavior regressed.

The service is available.

This candidate has enough evidence to release.

Baseline, properly understood

A reference.
Not a claim of perfection.

The baseline is the currently approved version or deliberately selected reference. It tells Revalte what the candidate is replacing—not what “perfect” looks like.

Relative requirementNo unacceptable regression

Compare the candidate with the approved behavior, case by case.

Absolute requirementMeet the release standard

Satisfy independent quality, safety, latency, and cost thresholds.

02A decision you can inspect

Better averages do not
erase critical failures.

Change the candidate or tighten the quality floor. Revalte evaluates the complete policy, preserving both aggregate movement and the cases that could block a release.

Illustrative dataNo live systems or customer results
Select a release change
Support assistant · candidate 1.9

A prompt change that improves average quality but introduces one critical policy regression.

Release policy · revision 12

Investigate

One critical case regressed even though the aggregate score improved.

RequirementBaselineCandidatePolicy
Quality89%92%≥ 90%Meets policy
Safety99%96%≥ 95%Regression
P95 latency620ms680ms≤ 2,000msMeets policy
Cost / case$0.012$0.014≤ $0.080Meets policy
Evidence retainedSuite rev. 28Policy rev. 12Candidate digest 7f3a…91c
03One continuous evidence path

Confidence should survive
the entire lifecycle.

Revalte connects pre-release evaluation with production evidence so the reason a version shipped remains attached to what happens after it reaches users.

01Build

Define what trustworthy means

Register the application, version the test cases, and combine quality, safety, latency, and cost checks into an immutable evaluation suite.

EvidenceVersioned applications, datasets, evaluators, suites, and checksums
02Evaluate

Compare the candidate with the baseline

Run both versions against the same cases and conditions, then inspect case-level outcomes, score distributions, regressions, and execution evidence.

EvidencePaired outputs, evaluator results, traces, usage, and reproducible run snapshots
03Release

Turn evidence into a controlled decision

Apply versioned policies to the complete result set so approval, rejection, and exception handling remain explainable and auditable.

EvidencePolicy version, decision rationale, approval record, and signed deployment attestation
04Observe

Measure the deployed system in context

Connect production telemetry to the approved version and watch quality, drift, errors, latency, tokens, and cost across environments.

EvidenceAuthenticated telemetry, sampled evaluations, traces, drift windows, and deployment identity
05Respond

Investigate and recover with provenance

Route incidents to the right operators, preserve the triggering evidence, coordinate recovery, and carry what was learned into the next evaluation cycle.

EvidenceIncident timeline, acknowledgements, delivery attempts, recovery actions, and audit history
04Evidence, not a single opinion

One judge should never hold
all the authority.

Combine exact checks, semantic evidence, model-based rubrics, trajectory analysis, custom domain logic, and accountable human review. Each answers a different question.

Selected evaluator · LLM judge

Apply a structured rubric to nuanced output

Ask a configured judge model for a schema-validated score, outcome, explanation, and evidence while retaining its prompt, model, retries, tokens, and cost.

Best used forGroundedness, helpfulness, policy adherence, tone, and pairwise preference

LLM judges contribute structured evidence. They do not become an unquestionable source of truth.

05Meet the application where it runs

Evaluate the system,
not only the model.

Prompts, retrieval, application code, tools, orchestration, providers, and runtime conditions all influence the result. Revalte evaluates the assembled application.

Target adapter · Agent application

Judge multi-step work, not only final text

Run an agent toward a case objective and assess its trajectory, tool choices, intermediate state, final answer, resource use, and termination behavior.

  • Step and tool-call capture
  • Trajectory evaluation
  • Active cancellation and recovery
01 · Case inputVersioned test caseInput · expected behavior · metadata
02 · Adapter boundaryAgent applicationIdentity · limits · cancellation · provenance
03 · EvidenceComparable resultOutput · trace · usage · evaluator outcomes
06Judgment with accountability

Automation should know
when to ask for help.

Route ambiguous and high-impact cases to people. Preserve assignments, comments, consensus, escalation, and resolution beside the automated evidence.

Review item · RVW-1842Needs judgment
“The candidate gives the right answer, but cites a retired policy version.”
Automated outcomeReview
Reviewer consensus2 of 2
Final resolutionRegression
JM

Correct content is not sufficient here. The source was superseded and the policy requires current evidence.

Resolution attached to case, evaluator, and release decision
01

Escalate uncertainty

Make thresholds and escalation rules explicit before the evaluation runs.

02

Measure agreement

Compare reviewers and automated evaluators to identify unreliable judgment.

03

Retain the reason

Keep the rationale beside the outcome so future teams can understand the decision.

The release is not the finish line

Production evidence closes
the learning loop.

  1. 01Approved version

    The release carries its policy and evaluation identity.

  2. 02Production signal

    Authenticated telemetry is joined to the deployed version.

  3. 03Drift or incident

    A threshold breach retains the trace and triggering evidence.

  4. 04Regression case

    The failure becomes a permanent test for the next candidate.

07Every decision remains explainable

Follow the evidence.
All the way back.

04
Selected evidence · Decision

A versioned release policy resolves the complete result set into an auditable gate.

  • Policy version
  • Failed requirements
  • Approval or rejection
  • Exception rationale
08Where evidence changes the decision

Different systems.
The whole decision.

Choose a workflow and follow it from the team and triggering change through the evaluation evidence, policy consequence, and next action.

Use case dossier · 01Illustrative scenario
Release assurance

Stop regressions before they become deployments

Compare each candidate with the trusted baseline and require the complete policy to pass before release.

Team
AI engineers, evaluation owners, and release managers
Trigger
A team changes a prompt, model, retrieval configuration, tool policy, or application version and needs defensible evidence before promotion.
Illustrative workflow

A support assistant is moving to a faster model

The candidate lowers median latency, but three refund-policy cases begin promising exceptions that the approved version correctly refuses.

Trusted reference

Approved v2.3 baseline, frozen case set, evaluator versions, and release policy

Candidate or live window

Support assistant v2.4 using the proposed model and revised system prompt

From change to consequence

How the workflow unfolds

  1. 01Freeze the comparison

    Bind the candidate, trusted baseline, dataset, evaluator versions, and policy to one reproducible run snapshot.

  2. 02Execute the same risk slices

    Run both versions against ordinary, boundary, and critical policy cases under equivalent conditions.

  3. 03Measure the trade-offs

    Compare quality, safety, latency, token use, and cost at both aggregate and individual-case level.

  4. 04Apply the release policy

    Resolve mandatory requirements and allowed tolerances into an approve, investigate, or block decision.

  5. 05Preserve the release record

    Retain the exact inputs, versions, failures, rationale, and resulting approval or rejection.

Evaluation logic

What Revalte examines

Policy groundedness
Detect unsupported policy claims
Deterministic invariants
Enforce critical refusal requirements
Pairwise quality
Compare candidate responses with the baseline
Latency and budget
Measure speed, tokens, and cost ceilings
Provenance

Evidence retained

  • Candidate and baseline identities
  • Case-level outputs and evaluator results
  • Aggregate deltas and failed requirements
  • Versioned policy decision and rationale
Policy consequenceBlock the candidate

The latency gain does not override failures in a mandatory refund-policy risk slice.

Next action

Restore the grounded refusal behavior, create regression cases from the failures, and rerun the unchanged release suite.

Pass-rate deltaCritical-case failuresLatency and cost changePolicy decision
Use case dossier · 02Illustrative scenario
Agent reliability

Inspect actions as closely as answers

Evaluate the full trajectory and preserve every decision needed to reproduce and explain the result.

Team
Agent engineers, platform teams, and operational-risk owners
Trigger
A new agent version receives a tool, broader permissions, revised instructions, or a changed multi-step workflow.
Illustrative workflow

An account agent gains permission to update customer details

The final message says the email was changed successfully, but the candidate calls the update tool before completing the required identity check.

Trusted reference

Approved v2.0 trajectory behavior plus the required verify-before-update tool policy

Candidate or live window

Account-service agent v2.1 with a new profile-update tool and revised planning prompt

From change to consequence

How the workflow unfolds

  1. 01Define the task and boundaries

    Version objectives, allowed tools, argument contracts, forbidden actions, step limits, and completion criteria.

  2. 02Run the complete agent trajectory

    Capture planning events, tool selection, arguments, responses, retries, state transitions, and the final answer.

  3. 03Evaluate process and result

    Judge task completion alongside tool order, argument validity, policy compliance, looping, and resource use.

  4. 04Escalate consequential failures

    Route uncertain or high-impact trajectories to a reviewer with the evidence required for a decision.

  5. 05Gate the agent version

    Apply the release policy to critical failures and aggregate reliability before permitting promotion.

Evaluation logic

What Revalte examines

Trajectory policy
Verify required tool order and forbidden actions
Argument validation
Check tool inputs against declared contracts
Task completion
Confirm the requested state was reached
Resource limits
Detect loops and enforce step, time, token, and cost bounds
Provenance

Evidence retained

  • Ordered tool calls and arguments
  • Tool responses and agent state transitions
  • Trajectory scores and evaluator explanations
  • Reviewer rationale and release-policy outcome
Policy consequenceBlock the agent version

A successful final message cannot compensate for a forbidden state-changing action before identity verification.

Next action

Correct the tool-ordering guard, add the failed trajectory to the immutable regression suite, and rerun the candidate.

Task completionTool selectionForbidden actionsSteps, tokens, and time
Use case dossier · 03Illustrative scenario
Retrieval quality

Separate fluent output from grounded output

Test retrieval, citations, relevance, groundedness, and answer quality together across versioned risk slices.

Team
RAG engineers, knowledge owners, and AI product teams
Trigger
A team changes embeddings, chunking, ranking, source content, retrieval parameters, or the answer-generation prompt.
Illustrative workflow

A policy assistant moves to a new retriever

The candidate finds the current regional policy more often, but a high-risk answer cites an outdated passage and adds an unsupported eligibility condition.

Trusted reference

Approved retriever v3, versioned source corpus, expected citations, and risk-slice labels

Candidate or live window

Retriever v4 with revised chunking, reranking, and answer prompt

From change to consequence

How the workflow unfolds

  1. 01Version the knowledge conditions

    Bind the corpus snapshot, retrieval configuration, candidate, reference, cases, and expected evidence.

  2. 02Inspect retrieval before generation

    Measure whether the right passages appear, where they rank, and whether stale or conflicting context enters the result.

  3. 03Evaluate every supported claim

    Check citation validity, claim support, groundedness, completeness, and answer usefulness together.

  4. 04Compare risk slices

    Separate improvements in routine questions from regressions in regions, policies, languages, or other critical slices.

  5. 05Resolve the release decision

    Apply requirements to retrieval and generated-answer evidence rather than relying on one blended score.

Evaluation logic

What Revalte examines

Retrieval relevance
Measure whether the selected context answers the case
Citation support
Verify that citations support the claims attached to them
Groundedness rubric
Detect claims absent from the supplied evidence
Corpus and slice checks
Expose stale sources and risk-specific regressions
Provenance

Evidence retained

  • Corpus and retrieval-configuration versions
  • Retrieved passages, ranks, and source identities
  • Claim-level citation and groundedness findings
  • Slice-level deltas and release rationale
Policy consequenceInvestigate before release

Overall retrieval improves, but the unsupported high-risk answer requires diagnosis and reviewer confirmation.

Next action

Repair source selection for the affected policy slice, review the disputed claim, and rerun the candidate against the same corpus snapshot.

Context relevanceCitation supportGroundednessRisk-slice coverage
Use case dossier · 04Illustrative scenario
Production assurance

Detect when real behavior leaves the approved envelope

Join deployment identity with telemetry, sampling, semantic drift, monitoring rules, and incident evidence.

Team
AI reliability teams, service owners, and incident responders
Trigger
Production traffic, user intent, model behavior, retrieved data, or a dependency begins moving away from the conditions that were approved.
Illustrative workflow

A deployed assistant starts receiving a new class of billing requests

Authenticated telemetry shows a sustained semantic shift, rising escalation failures, and a quality decline concentrated in the new request cluster.

Trusted reference

The approved v3.2 evaluation envelope, baseline distribution, monitoring rules, and deployment identity

Candidate or live window

Sampled production behavior from assistant v3.2 in the affected time window

From change to consequence

How the workflow unfolds

  1. 01Bind telemetry to the deployment

    Associate authenticated observations with environment, application version, trace, request, and release evidence.

  2. 02Sample and evaluate live behavior

    Apply governed production sampling and evaluators while redacting configured sensitive attributes.

  3. 03Measure change over time

    Compare quality, semantic distributions, errors, latency, tokens, and cost with the approved envelope.

  4. 04Open an evidence-backed incident

    When a monitoring rule is sustained, preserve the triggering samples, traces, rule state, and delivery history.

  5. 05Carry learning back to evaluation

    Convert representative production failures into versioned cases before the next candidate is approved.

Evaluation logic

What Revalte examines

Semantic drift
Identify changes in live input or output distributions
Sampled quality
Reapply configured quality checks to selected traffic
Operational thresholds
Watch errors, latency, tokens, and cost over windows
Monitoring rules
Require sustained conditions before incident creation
Provenance

Evidence retained

  • Deployment, trace, and request identities
  • Redacted sampled inputs, outputs, and evaluator results
  • Drift windows and monitoring-rule state
  • Incident timeline, notifications, and recovery actions
Policy consequenceInvestigate the affected traffic slice

The change is sustained and localized, providing enough evidence to respond without treating all traffic as equally degraded.

Next action

Triage the new billing-intent cluster, mitigate the failing path, and promote representative samples into the regression dataset.

Quality trendSemantic driftError and latency rateIncident threshold
A wider operating surface

Also built for

The same evidence chain adapts to narrower questions across development, release, governance, and live operations.

  • 01Prompt changes

    Prove a prompt revision improves the right behavior

    Compare prompt versions against the same cases and evaluators, then inspect which capabilities improved, regressed, or merely shifted in style.

    Evidence produced

    Prompt identity · paired outputs · case-level deltas · release-policy result

  • 02Provider and model migration

    Change models without trading away hidden requirements

    Run candidate and reference models under controlled cases while recording normalized quality, latency, token use, cost, and provider evidence.

    Evidence produced

    Model identity · quality comparison · rate-limit history · usage and cost

  • 03Cost–quality optimization

    Find savings the release policy can defend

    Compare quality distributions and critical requirements alongside token, latency, and cost changes instead of optimizing a single average.

    Evidence produced

    Quality distribution · critical failures · token totals · estimated cost

  • 04CI release gates

    Make evaluation evidence part of delivery

    Trigger a versioned evaluation for a candidate build and return an auditable approve, investigate, or block result to the release workflow.

    Evidence produced

    Build reference · immutable run · policy version · signed decision record

  • 05Human calibration

    Measure where automated and human judgment disagree

    Route selected or uncertain results to assigned reviewers, retain their rationale, and compare agreement across reviewers and evaluators.

    Evidence produced

    Assignments · labels · comments · consensus · evaluator agreement

  • 06Safety and policy

    Turn consequential rules into testable requirements

    Combine deterministic invariants, structured rubrics, trajectory checks, and escalation so critical failures cannot disappear inside an aggregate score.

    Evidence produced

    Policy version · violated requirement · supporting output or action · disposition

  • 07Evaluation governance

    Know which cases and evaluators justified a decision

    Version datasets, risk-slice metadata, evaluator configurations, and suite membership so a later rerun answers the same documented question.

    Evidence produced

    Dataset checksum · suite revision · evaluator versions · case provenance

  • 08MCP and tool servers

    Test tool behavior inside an explicit control boundary

    Constrain available tools and arguments, execute approved scenarios, and retain calls, responses, errors, and policy outcomes for inspection.

    Evidence produced

    Tool allowlist · argument schema · call sequence · managed-egress decision

  • 09Output contracts

    Make machine-consumed responses prove their shape

    Validate schemas, required attributes, exact invariants, numerical limits, and semantic requirements before downstream systems consume a candidate response.

    Evidence produced

    Schema revision · validation errors · semantic result · failing case

  • 010Deployment attestation

    Connect what passed with what reached an environment

    Bind the approved application version and release decision to an external deployment reference so production evidence retains its origin.

    Evidence produced

    Version identity · environment · deployment reference · attestation digest

  • 011Incident learning

    Make production failures improve the next gate

    Preserve representative incident evidence, convert the failure into a versioned case, and verify the fix against the same behavior before release.

    Evidence produced

    Incident timeline · source trace · regression case · recovery verification

  • 012Audit and assurance

    Reconstruct why a version was allowed to ship

    Follow the chain from case and execution through evaluator results, policy decision, approval, deployment, and production observations.

    Evidence produced

    Actor history · immutable versions · decision rationale · evidence checksums

Revalte · Signal intelligence

Make every release
explain itself.

Revalte gives AI teams a repeatable way to test candidates, understand regressions, enforce release standards, and carry the same evidence into production.

Follow the evidence again
01Evidence before assertion
02Standards before release
03Learning after deployment