claw-swe-bench

July 1, 2026 · View on GitHub

Leaderboard: claw-swe-bench.github.io

A unified adapter framework for evaluating agent harnesses ("claws") on SWE-bench. One command runs any supported claw on SWE-bench Verified or SWE-bench Multilingual, with identical prompting, patch collection, and evaluation across all of them — so the harness becomes a controlled variable and results are comparable harness-to-harness.

This repository is the reference implementation for the technical report Claw-SWE-Bench: A Benchmark for Evaluating OpenClaw-Style Agent Harnesses on Coding Tasks. The full benchmark is 350 GitHub issue-resolution instances across 8 languages (300 from SWE-bench Multilingual + 50 from SWE-bench Verified-Mini); the paper also defines an 80-instance Lite subset for low-cost iteration (see Instance lists in Notes).

Supported claws:

Claw	Runtime	How it gets into the container	Model selection
`openclaw`	Node.js CLI	bind-mount node + module + `~/.openclaw`	`--model` (per-agent)
`hermes`	Python venv	bind-mount standalone Python + venv	`--model` + `claw_configs/hermes/config.yaml` providers
`nanobot`	Python venv	bind-mount standalone Python + venv	`claw_configs/nanobot/config.json`
`zeroclaw`	single Rust binary	bind-mount binary	`claw_configs/zeroclaw/config.toml`
`generic`	Python repo (lsdefine/GenericAgent)	bind-mount repo + venv	`--llm_no` index into `claw_configs/generic/mykey.py`

Design

run_infer.py ──► orchestrator ──► SWEBenchWorkspace (Docker)  ── claw-agnostic
                     │                    │
                     └────────► BaseClawAdapter hooks ──────── claw-specific
                                (claw_swebench/claws/)
run_eval.py  ──► official SWE-bench harness (separate venv)

Claw-agnostic core (claw_swebench/): dataset loading, container lifecycle, repo preparation, prompt rendering, runner-side patch collection/cleaning, predictions/state persistence, harness evaluation.
Claw adapters (claw_swebench/claws/): each adapter implements BaseClawAdapter — extra docker run args (mounts), post-start provisioning, agent lifecycle, task launch, session backup, usage collection. Adding a claw = one new file + one registry entry.

Key fairness/contamination properties, enforced for every claw:

Same prompt. All claws use prompts/default.txt (a phase-by-phase long prompt). The only allowed override is tool-name guidance (prompts/generic.txt adds 3 lines for GenericAgent's tool names and bans its web tools; everything else is identical).
No network answers. The prompt forbids network use; OpenClaw additionally gets a 13-tool deny list (web/memory/session/cron tools); NanoBot's web tools are disabled in config; ZeroClaw's traffic goes through a tool-filtering proxy.
Future-commit stripping. The official Multilingual images retain the fix commit in git history (git log --all leaks the gold patch). Every workspace strips future tags/commits, expires reflogs, and GCs before the agent starts, then asserts zero future commits remain.
Runner-side patch collection. The patch is always git diff taken by the runner after the agent exits — never agent-reported. Setup/lock-file and binary diffs are stripped (patch.py).
Per-instance isolation. One fresh container per instance (pids/memory limited); OpenClaw additionally gets a throwaway agent per instance.

Setup

1. Host requirements

Docker with prebuilt SWE-bench instance images (sweb.eval.x86_64.<instance_id>:latest, or SWE-agent's swebench/sweb.eval.x86_64.<id> naming — both are auto-detected).
Python 3.10+ with pip install -r requirements.txt.
The official SWE-bench harness installed in its own venv for evaluation (default /data/swe-bench-env, override with SWEBENCH_VENV).

2. Install the claw(s) you want to run

Each claw's runtime lives on the host and is bind-mounted read-only into the eval containers. Defaults (all overridable via env vars, see claw_swebench/config.py):

Env var	Default	Used by
`CLAW_PYTHON_HOME`	standalone Python 3.12 home (e.g. the `uv python install 3.12` location)	hermes, nanobot, generic
`OPENCLAW_NODE_BIN` / `OPENCLAW_MODULE_DIR` / `OPENCLAW_STATE_DIR`	`/usr/bin/node` / `/usr/lib/node_modules/openclaw` / `~/.openclaw`	openclaw
`HERMES_ENV_PATH`	`/opt/hermes-env`	hermes
`NANOBOT_ENV_PATH`	`/opt/nanobot-env`	nanobot
`ZEROCLAW_BIN`	`/usr/local/bin/zeroclaw`	zeroclaw
`GA_REPO_PATH` / `GA_ENV_PATH`	`/opt/genericagent` / `/opt/genericagent-env`	generic

The standalone Python (uv python install 3.12) is required because the SWE-bench images don't ship a usable Python 3.12; the venvs must be created with that interpreter so they run inside any container.

3. Configure the claw

Copy the example config and fill in your API keys (real config files are gitignored):

cp claw_configs/hermes/config.yaml.example   claw_configs/hermes/config.yaml
cp claw_configs/nanobot/config.json.example  claw_configs/nanobot/config.json
cp claw_configs/zeroclaw/config.toml.example claw_configs/zeroclaw/config.toml
cp claw_configs/generic/mykey.py.example     claw_configs/generic/mykey.py

hermes and generic also read API keys from the host environment (OPENROUTER_API_KEY, ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, DEEPSEEK_API_KEY, DASHSCOPE_API_KEY, …) — these are forwarded into the container automatically. OpenClaw uses its own credential store (~/.openclaw).

Run

Inference (patch generation):

python3 run_infer.py \
    --claw openclaw \
    --dataset multilingual \
    --run_id openclaw-multi-1 \
    --instance_file config/multilingual_300_instances.txt \
    --timeout 3600

--timeout 3600 is the standard per-instance budget used in our evaluations (also the built-in default — spelled out here so runs are reproducible even if defaults change).

--claw {openclaw,hermes,nanobot,zeroclaw,generic} — which harness.
--dataset {verified,multilingual} — loads config/<dataset>.yaml.
--model, --timeout, --max_turns — override per-claw defaults (CLAW_DEFAULTS in config.py). For nanobot/zeroclaw the model lives in the claw's own config file; --model is recorded as metadata.
--llm_no N — generic only: selects the Nth provider in mykey.py.
--workers N — parallel instances (each in its own container).
Re-running the same --run_id resumes (skips completed instances); --no_resume disables that.

Artifacts land in artifacts/<run_id>/: per-instance prompt.txt, agent_stdout.log / agent_stderr.log, session logs, git.patch, metadata.json (incl. token usage where available), plus shared predictions.jsonl and state.jsonl.

Evaluation (official harness):

python3 run_eval.py \
    --predictions artifacts/openclaw-multi-1/predictions.jsonl \
    --dataset_name SWE-bench/SWE-bench_Multilingual \
    --run_id openclaw-multi-1

Use a distinct --run_id per claw/run so harness logs don't collide.

Adding a new claw

Create claw_swebench/claws/<name>.py implementing BaseClawAdapter:
- container_run_args(instance_id) — bind mounts for your runtime;
- send_task(...) — launch the agent in the container, return AgentResult;
- optionally post_container_start, create_agent/delete_agent, backup_session, collect_usage, prompt_template.
Register the class in claw_swebench/claws/__init__.py and add defaults to CLAW_DEFAULTS in config.py.
Keep the default prompt. Only add tool-name guidance if your claw's tools genuinely need it, and keep the rest of the template byte-identical.

Notes

Resource limits: every container runs with --pids-limit 300 --memory 8g (override via CLAW_PIDS_LIMIT / CLAW_CONTAINER_MEMORY).
Proxies (proxies/, claw_configs/zeroclaw/tool_filter_proxy.py): optional host-side HTTP proxies for accurate cache/usage accounting on providers that under-report it (e.g. DashScope cached_tokens). See the file headers for details.
Instance lists: config/multilingual_300_instances.txt and config/verified_mini_50.txt together form the 350-instance full set. The 80-instance Lite subset is selected by the cost-aware, rank-aware procedure described in the paper.