Evals

9 min read

How we calibrate an LLM judge against human reviewers

Maya Chen

Circuit board in lilac light

The method behind 94% agreement: sampling, disagreement review and when to keep a human in the loop.

What we measured

We ran every variant against the same 240 production cases, scored each with a calibrated judge, and compared pass rate, cost per 1k calls and p95 latency against main.

What we learned

Most regressions came from instructions that looked redundant. Keep the ones that constrain format, citations and refusals, and test every removal on real cases before it ships.

Catch

AI

regressions

before

your

users

do.

Start with 240 of your own cases. 14 days free, no credit card.

Catch

AI

regressions

before

your

users

do.

Start with 240 of your own cases. 14 days free, no credit card.

Catch

AI

regressions

before

your

users

do.

Start with 240 of your own cases. 14 days free, no credit card.

Holdout

Get the monthly changelog

1,400+ AI teams ship with Holdout.

© 2026 Holdout Labs, Inc.

All systems normal

Holdout

Get the monthly changelog

1,400+ AI teams ship with Holdout.

© 2026 Holdout Labs, Inc.

All systems normal

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