LLM Evaluation

Master comprehensive evaluation strategies for LLM applications, from automated metrics to human evaluation and A/B testing.

When to Use This Skill

• Measuring LLM application performance systematically
• Comparing different models or prompts
• Detecting performance regressions before deployment
• Validating improvements from prompt changes
• Building confidence in production systems
• Establishing baselines and tracking progress over time
• Debugging unexpected model behavior

Core Evaluation Types

1. Automated Metrics

Fast, repeatable, scalable evaluation using computed scores.

Text Generation:

• BLEU: N-gram overlap (translation)
• ROUGE: Recall-oriented (summarization)
• METEOR: Semantic similarity
• BERTScore: Embedding-based similarity
• Perplexity: Language model confidence

Classification:

• Accuracy: Percentage correct
• Precision/Recall/F1: Class-specific performance
• Confusion Matrix: Error patterns
• AUC-ROC: Ranking quality

Retrieval (RAG):

• MRR: Mean Reciprocal Rank
• NDCG: Normalized Discounted Cumulative Gain
• Precision@K: Relevant in top K
• Recall@K: Coverage in top K

2. Human Evaluation

Manual assessment for quality aspects difficult to automate.

Dimensions:

• Accuracy: Factual correctness
• Coherence: Logical flow
• Relevance: Answers the question
• Fluency: Natural language quality
• Safety: No harmful content
• Helpfulness: Useful to the user

3. LLM-as-Judge

Use stronger LLMs to evaluate weaker model outputs.

Approaches:

• Pointwise: Score individual responses
• Pairwise: Compare two responses