Verification as an Architectural Layer for LLM Agents: A V-Model Design, and a Pilot Study of Its Deterministic Core

Ali Afoud, Jie JW Wu

Large language model (LLM) agents built on the ReAct pattern concentrate four responsibilities in one model: selecting a strategy, choosing each action, formatting it, and judging whether the result is adequate. Nothing outside the generative loop can reject its output, so an agent that cannot make progress does not report failure; it runs until an external budget stops it. We propose treating verification as an architectural layer by adapting the V-model from software engineering: specification levels descend from requirements to individual steps, each level is paired with a dedicated verifier, a deterministic controller enforces every verdict, and only verification outcomes write to memory, so a rejection localizes the level that introduced the fault and an agent halts by declining rather than by exhaustion. Each verifier separates a zero-cost deterministic \emph{gate} from an optional LLM \emph{judge}, so the contribution and cost of each can be measured independently. We report a pilot implementing the acceptance- and unit-level verifier pairs, comparing five configurations that share one executor, tool set, and scorer and differ only in verification, on the four-hop stratum…