Error Propagation
A problem in which an error originating at one stage or component is carried into later reasoning, state, actions, tool operations, outputs, or evaluation.
Example
An early total is miscalculated by one digit; subsequent calculations reuse the incorrect value and the final report is also wrong.
Distinctions and cautions
Error Propagation concerns an earlier error being passed downstream. If it triggers additional, different failures that spread across stages, the event may be analyzed as a Cascading Failure. Propagation alone should not automatically be classified as a cascade.
Evidence
View evidence →
FAMA
- Title
- FAMA
- Author / organization
- UNKNOWN
- Year
- 2026
- Source type / publication status
- Findings ACL peer-reviewed research; published
- Supported concepts / claim context
- Error accumulation and Cascading Failure.
- Scope and limitations
- Conversational/tool environments, especially open-source models; depends on the environment/model.
- Access / version note
- Author or organization remains UNKNOWN in the source authority.
- Recorded official URL / DOI / identifier
- DOI:
10.18653/v1/2026.findings-acl.1716(DOI resolver)
AgentPro
- Title
- AgentPro
- Author / organization
- Deng et al.
- Year
- 2025
- Source type / publication status
- EMNLP peer-reviewed research; published
- Supported concepts / claim context
- Error Propagation; process supervision.
- Scope and limitations
- Concentrates on propagation through reasoning chains.
- Access / version note
- Published EMNLP.
- Recorded official URL / DOI / identifier
- DOI:
10.18653/v1/2025.emnlp-main.506(DOI resolver)
EVOTOOL
- Title
- EVOTOOL
- Author / organization
- Yang et al.
- Year
- 2026
- Source type / publication status
- ACL peer-reviewed research; published
- Supported concepts / claim context
- Planner/selector/caller distinctions and cross-module propagation.
- Scope and limitations
- Modular architecture; not a universal architecture.
- Access / version note
- Published ACL.
- Recorded official URL / DOI / identifier
- DOI:
10.18653/v1/2026.acl-long.2016(DOI resolver)
BackdoorAgent
- Title
- BackdoorAgent
- Author / organization
- UNKNOWN
- Year
- 2026
- Source type / publication status
- Findings ACL peer-reviewed research; published
- Supported concepts / claim context
- Cross-stage propagation involving memory, tools and planning.
- Scope and limitations
- Adversarial backdoor setting; cannot be unconditionally generalized to naturally occurring failures.
- Access / version note
- Author or organization remains UNKNOWN in the source authority.
- Recorded official URL / DOI / identifier
- DOI:
10.18653/v1/2026.findings-acl.791(DOI resolver)