Skip to main content
Models & Research

SCLATE: A Substrate for Continual-Learning Agent Training and Evaluation

SCLATE: A Substrate for Continual-Learning Agent Training and Evaluation - Apple Machine Learning Research research area Methods and Algorithms , research area Tools, Platforms, Frameworks content type paper published September 2026 SCLATE: A Substrate for Continual-Learning Agent Training and Evaluation Authors Youngmok Jung, Sirajul Salekin, Henry Tran, Javier Movellan, Zhao Huang, Manjot Bilkhu Continual-learning agents are systems of models, harnesses,...

By Precis Daily Newsroom2 min read469 words
Illustration for: SCLATE: A Substrate for Continual-Learning Agent Training an
Illustration
Key points
  • Evaluating and training them requires interleaving tasks with agent-side events such as session stop and start, crons, and memory consolidation.
  • We then post-train Qwen3.5-4B through unmodified harnesses and memory systems.
  • The model learns to use both, reading 6.8× fewer file lines with a 16.7-point higher SWE-bench Verified pass rate, and writing richer memory records, while its held-out MetaClaw accuracy rises by up to 11.8 points.
  • Apple Machine Learning Research research area Methods and Algorithms , research area Tools, Platforms, Frameworks content type paper published September 2026 SCLATE: A Substrate for Continual-Learning Agent Training and Evaluation Authors Youngmok Jung, Sirajul Salekin, Henry Tran, Javier Movellan, Zhao Huang, Manjot Bilkhu Continual-learning agents are systems of models, harnesses, and memory operating over long multi-session horizons. Evaluating and training them requires interleaving tasks with agent-side events such as session stop and start, crons, and memory consolidation. Yet existing benchmarks and training frameworks schedule only the benchmark’s own events, leaving each benchmark and agent pair to build a custom scheduling loop. We present SCLATE, an execution substrate where benchmarks and unmodified agents each add their events to one open event scheduler through an adapter. A hybrid simulated clock runs these events on a shared timeline, flowing in real time while the agent works and skipping idle gaps, which compresses a month-long scenario into hours. SCLATE also serves as a rollout engine that runs any agent’s harness and memory unmodified, recording the tokens and log probabilities of every model call through an in-container proxy. We port seven benchmarks to SCLATE and compare ten unmodified harness and memory configurations head to head on ten models. The comparison shows that an added memory system does not reliably beat the harness’s native memory and that models differ widely in how they use the same harness and memory. We then post-train Qwen3.5-4B through unmodified harnesses and memory systems. The model learns to use both, reading 6.8× fewer file lines with a 16.7-point higher SWE-bench Verified pass rate, and writing richer memory records, while its held-out MetaClaw accuracy rises by up to 11.8 points. How Much of a Harness Does a Strong Agent Need for Autonomous ML Engineering? October 1, 2026 research area Methods and Algorithms Recent autonomous machine learning engineering (MLE) agents have made significant progress on public leaderboards. Often motivated by progress stagnation over long-horizon cycles and limited Large Language Model (LLM) primitives, modern MLE agents are deployed on top of increasingly elaborate machinery: multi-agent orchestrators, dedicated retrieval subagents, and more. While such harnesses expand, the use of more primitive but improved coding… AgentBuilder: Exploring Scaffolds for Prototyping User Experiences of Interface Agents January 9, 2026 research area Human-Computer Interaction Interface agents powered by generative AI models (referred to as “agents”) can automate actions based on user commands. An important aspect of developing agents is their user experience (i.e., agent experience). There is a growing need to provide scaffolds for a broader set of individuals beyond AI engineers to prototype agent experiences, since they can contribute valuable perspectives to designing agent experiences. In this work, we explore the… Discover opportunities in Machine Learning. Our research in machine learning breaks new ground every day.

Sources

Summarized from the linked originals.

Related stories

Illustration for: Automating coherent long-form video generation
Models & Research

Automating coherent long-form video generation Automating coherent long-form video generation Yale Song and Yiwen Song, Research Scientists, Google We introduce a unified multi-agent framework that autonomously generates temporally consistent, long-form video narratives, overcoming the identity drift and cascading failures of current linear AI pipelines.

Google Research10 min
Illustration for: ToolGrad: Efficient tool-use dataset generation with textual
Models & Research

ToolGrad: Efficient tool-use dataset generation with textual "gradients" ToolGrad: Efficient tool-use dataset generation with textual "gradients" Zhongyi Zhou, Research Scientist, and Ruofei Du, Interactive Perception & Graphics Lead, Google XR ToolGrad is a data generation framework that reverses the traditional paradigm by first generating tool-use answers before user queries. We show this design enables LLMs to achieve better tool-use performance.

Google Research6 min