Agentic System Shadow Testing Technique

An Agentic System Shadow Testing Technique is a production testing technique that runs agentic system variants in parallel with production systems without affecting user experience.

• AKA: Agent Shadow Mode Testing, Dark Launch Testing for Agents, Parallel Agent Testing Technique, Non-Impacting Production Test.
• Context:
  • It can typically execute candidate agent versions alongside production agents with duplicated request streams.
  • It can typically capture performance comparison metrics without exposing experimental behavior to end users.
  • It can typically validate agent decision consistency through output divergence analysis with behavioral difference tracking.
  • It can often identify production-specific issues that offline testing cannot detect with real-world workloads.
  • It can often enable gradual rollout decisions based on shadow performance metrics with risk assessment.
  • It can often support A/B testing preparation by validating variant stability before user exposure.
  • It can range from being a Partial Shadow Test to being a Full Shadow Test, depending on its traffic coverage.
  • It can range from being a Short-Duration Shadow Test to being a Extended Shadow Test, depending on its observation period.
  • It can range from being a Single-Variant Shadow Test to being a Multi-Variant Shadow Test, depending on its variant count.
  • It can range from being a Read-Only Shadow Test to being a Write-Simulating Shadow Test, depending on its operation scope.
  • ...
• Examples:
  • LLM Shadow Testings, such as:
    • GPT Model Version Shadow Test comparing response quality across model updates.
    • Prompt Strategy Shadow Test evaluating alternative prompt templates.
  • RAG System Shadow Testings, such as:
    • Retrieval Algorithm Shadow Test for search relevance improvement.
    • Chunking Strategy Shadow Test comparing document segmentation approaches.
  • Multi-Agent Shadow Testings, such as:
    • Coordination Protocol Shadow Test for collaboration efficiency.
  • ...
• Counter-Examples:
  • A/B Testing, which exposes variants to actual user traffic.
  • Offline Testing, which lacks production environment characteristics.
  • Canary Deployment, which gradually shifts real traffic to new versions.
• See: Shadow Testing, Agentic System Progression Testing Task, Production Testing Technique, A/B Testing, Canary Deployment, Dark Launch, Performance Comparison Testing.

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