# What is Agent Reliability?

The consistency of an AI agent's output and success across repeated runs of the same task, rather than its performance on a single run.

Source: https://usewire.io/glossary/agent-reliability/
Last updated: 2026-07-08

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Agent reliability is distinct from raw capability: an agent can be capable on average yet unreliable, producing a correct result on one run and a wrong one on the next from identical inputs. Most of this variance is not intrinsic model randomness but a context engineering problem, because each run assembles context differently (retrieval order, memory state, tool outputs), so the model diverges even at temperature zero. Reliability is measured with pass@k and variance, not single-run pass@1.

## Related terms

- [agent-drift](https://usewire.io/glossary/agent-drift/)
- [context-drift](https://usewire.io/glossary/context-drift/)
- [context-engineering](https://usewire.io/glossary/context-engineering/)
- [multi-agent-system](https://usewire.io/glossary/multi-agent-system/)
- [context-rot](https://usewire.io/glossary/context-rot/)