Setting the file. One moment.
Subchapter 4.48
shared/managed-agents-outcomes.mdMarkdown7 KBView on GitHub
An outcome elevates a session from conversation to work: you state what “done” looks like, and the harness runs an iterate → grade → revise loop until the artifact meets the rubric, hits max_iterations, or is interrupted. A separate grader (independent context window) scores each iteration against your rubric and feeds per-criterion gaps back to the agent.
The SDK sets the managed-agents-2026-04-01 beta header automatically on all client.beta.sessions.* calls; no additional header is required for outcomes.
user.define_outcome eventOutcomes are not a field on sessions.create(). You create a normal session, then send a user.define_outcome event. The agent starts working on receipt — do not also send a user.message to kick it off.
You can collapse both calls into one by passing a single user.define_outcome in the session’s initial_events array — same event, same rules, one round trip (see shared/managed-agents-core.md → Seeding a session with initial_events). More than one user.define_outcome in that array, or one without a rubric, rejects the whole create with a 400.
session = client.beta.sessions.create(
agent=AGENT_ID,
environment_id=ENVIRONMENT_ID,
title="Financial analysis on Costco",
)
client.beta.sessions.events.send(
session_id=session.id,
events=[
{
"type": "user.define_outcome",
"description": "Build a DCF model for Costco in .xlsx",
"rubric": {"type": "text", "content": RUBRIC_MD},
# or: "rubric": {"type": "file", "file_id": rubric.id}
"max_iterations": 5, # optional; default 3, max 20
}
],
)| Field | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
type | "user.define_outcome" | |
description | string | The task. This is what the agent works toward — no separate user.message needed. |
rubric | {type: "text", content} | {type: "file", file_id} | Required. Markdown with explicit, independently gradeable criteria. Upload once via client.beta.files.upload(...) (beta files-api-2025-04-14) to reuse across sessions. |
max_iterations | int | Optional. Default 3, max 20. |
The event is echoed back on the stream with a server-assigned outcome_id and processed_at.
Writing rubrics. Use explicit, gradeable criteria (“CSV has a numeric
pricecolumn”), not vibes (“data looks good”) — the grader scores each criterion independently, so vague criteria produce noisy loops. If you don’t have a rubric, have Claude analyze a known-good artifact and turn that analysis into one.
These appear on the standard event stream (sessions.events.stream / .list) alongside the usual agent.* / session.* events.
| Event | Payload highlights | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
span.outcome_evaluation_start | outcome_id, iteration (0-indexed) | Grader began scoring iteration N. |
span.outcome_evaluation_ongoing | outcome_id | Heartbeat while the grader runs. Grader reasoning is opaque — you see that it’s working, not what it’s thinking. |
span.outcome_evaluation_end | outcome_evaluation_start_id, outcome_id, iteration, result, explanation, usage | Grader finished one iteration. result drives what happens next (table below). |
result | Next |
|---|---|
satisfied | Session → idle. Terminal for this outcome. |
needs_revision | Agent starts another iteration. |
max_iterations_reached | No further grader cycles. Agent may run one final revision, then session → idle. |
failed | Session → idle. Rubric fundamentally doesn’t match the task (e.g. description and rubric contradict). |
interrupted | Emitted whenever a user.interrupt arrives while an outcome is active — even if evaluation hadn’t started. In that case outcome_evaluation_start_id is an empty string rather than an event ID, so don’t use it as a lookup key without checking. (Except an interrupt sent while paused at the session budget, which is accepted and ignored — see shared/managed-agents-events.md § Reaching a session budget.) |
{
"type": "span.outcome_evaluation_end",
"id": "sevt_01jkl...",
"outcome_evaluation_start_id": "sevt_01def...",
"outcome_id": "outc_01a...",
"result": "satisfied",
"explanation": "All 12 criteria met: revenue projections use 5 years of historical data, ...",
"iteration": 0,
"usage": { "input_tokens": 2400, "output_tokens": 350, "cache_creation_input_tokens": 0, "cache_read_input_tokens": 1800 },
"processed_at": "2026-03-25T14:03:00Z"
}Status — either watch the stream for span.outcome_evaluation_end, or poll the session and read outcome_evaluations:
session = client.beta.sessions.retrieve(session.id)
for ev in session.outcome_evaluations:
print(f"{ev.outcome_id}: {ev.result}") # outc_01a...: satisfiedDeliverables — the agent writes to /mnt/session/outputs/. Once idle, fetch via the Files API with scope_id=session.id. This is the same session-outputs mechanism documented in shared/managed-agents-environments.md → Session outputs (including the dual-beta-header requirement on files.list).
user.define_outcome only after the previous one’s terminal span.outcome_evaluation_end (satisfied / max_iterations_reached / failed / interrupted). The session retains history across chained outcomes.user.message events mid-outcome to nudge direction, but the agent already knows to keep working until terminal — don’t send “keep going” prompts. (Exception: a session paused at its budget (stop_reason: budget_reached) accepts only settle events — a steering user.message, or a chained user.define_outcome, is a 400 there; see shared/managed-agents-events.md § Reaching a session budget.)user.interrupt pauses the current outcome — it marks result: "interrupted" and leaves the session idle, ready for a new outcome or conversational turn. (Exception: sent while paused at the session budget, the interrupt is accepted and ignored and the outcome stays active — see shared/managed-agents-events.md § Reaching a session budget.)outcome, rubric, or description on sessions.create() — outcomes are always sent as a user.define_outcome event.event.type === 'session.status_idle' && event.stop_reason?.type !== 'requires_action' — do not gate on span.outcome_evaluation_end alone (on needs_revision the session keeps running). See shared/managed-agents-client-patterns.md Pattern 5.For the raw HTTP shapes and per-language SDK bindings beyond Python, WebFetch https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/managed-agents/define-outcomes.md (see shared/live-sources.md).