CFBench: A Comprehensive Constraints-Following Benchmark for LLMs
Tao Zhang, Chenglin Zhu, Yanjun Shen, Wenjing Luo, Yan Zhang, Hao Liang, Fan Yang, Mingan Lin, Yujing Qiao, Weipeng Chen, Bin Cui, Wentao Zhang, Zenan Zhou
Abstract
The adeptness of Large Language Models (LLMs) in comprehending and following natural language instructions is critical for their deployment in sophisticated real-world applications. Existing evaluations mainly focus on fragmented constraints or narrow scenarios, but they overlook the comprehensiveness and authenticity of constraints from the user's perspective. To bridge this gap, we propose CFBench, a large-scale Comprehensive Constraints Following Benchmark for LLMs, featuring 1,000 curated samples that cover more than 200 real-life scenarios and over 50 NLP tasks. CFBench meticulously compiles constraints from real-world instructions and constructs an innovative systematic framework for constraint types, which includes 10 primary categories and over 25 subcategories, and ensures each constraint is seamlessly integrated within the instructions. To make certain that the evaluation of LLM outputs aligns with user perceptions, we propose an advanced methodology that integrates multi-dimensional assessment criteria with requirement prioritization, covering various perspectives of constraints, instructions, and requirement fulfillment. Evaluating current leading LLMs on CFBench reveals substantial room for improvement in constraints following, and we further investigate influencing factors and enhancement strategies. The data and code are publicly available at https://github.com/PKU-Baichuan-MLSystemLab/CFBench
Ask about this paper
Your agent reads all of it.
Lune indexed this paper to the last equation, along with the top-tier papers that cite it. Ask a question and the answer quotes them.
Your agent calls
Luneget_paper_fulltext
Free to start. No credit card required.
Terminal
Install the CLIlune papers fulltext 3a0c12fd-2202-4aba-b788-dfb257a603d3Cited by top-tier papers16
- VeriPlan: Integrating Formal Verification and LLMs into End-User PlanningChristine P. Lee, David Porfirio, Xinyu Jessica Wang, Kevin Chenkai Zhao et al.CHI 2025 · 50 citations
- Incentivizing Reasoning for Advanced Instruction-Following of Large Language ModelsYulei Qin, Gang Li, Zongyi Li, Zihan Xu et al.NeurIPS 2025 · 17 citations
- Scone: Bridging Composition and Distinction in Subject-Driven Image Generation via Unified Understanding-Generation ModelingYuran Wang, Bohan Zeng, Chengzhuo Tong, Wenxuan Liu et al.CVPR 2026 · 9 citations
- Instructions are all you need: Self-supervised Reinforcement Learning for Instruction FollowingQingyu Ren, Qianyu He, Powei Chang, Jie Zeng et al.ACL 2026 · 6 citations
- Light-IF: Endowing LLMs with Generalizable Reasoning via Preview and Self-Checking for Complex Instruction FollowingChenyang Wang, Liang Wen, Shousheng Jia, Xiangzheng Zhang et al.AAAI 2026 · 5 citations
Builds on11
- Measuring Massive Multitask Language UnderstandingDan Hendrycks, Collin Burns, Steven Basart, Andy Zou et al.ICLR 2021 · 7,905 citations
- Finetuned Language Models are Zero-Shot LearnersJason Wei, Maarten Bosma, Vincent Y. Zhao, Kelvin Guu et al.ICLR 2022 · 4,966 citations
- Multitask Prompted Training Enables Zero-Shot Task GeneralizationVictor Sanh, Albert Webson, Colin Raffel, Stephen H. Bach et al.ICLR 2022 · 1,976 citations
- Cross-Task Generalization via Natural Language Crowdsourcing InstructionsSwaroop Mishra, Daniel Khashabi, Chitta Baral, Hannaneh HajishirziACL 2022 · 887 citations
- AgentBench: Evaluating LLMs as AgentsXiao Liu, Hao Yu, Hanchen Zhang, Yifan Xu et al.ICLR 2024 · 748 citations
Related papers
- FollowBench: A Multi-level Fine-grained Constraints Following Benchmark for Large Language ModelsYuxin Jiang, Yufei Wang, Xingshan Zeng, Wanjun Zhong et al.ACL 2024 · 10 citations
- Can Large Language Models Understand Real-World Complex Instructions?Qianyu He, Jie Zeng, Wenhao Huang, Lina Chen et al.AAAI 2024 · 99 citations
- SysBench: Can LLMs Follow System Message?Yanzhao Qin, Tao Zhang, Tao Zhang, Yanjun Shen et al.ICLR 2025
- GuideBench: Benchmarking Domain-Oriented Guideline Following for LLM AgentsLingxiao Diao, Xinyue Xu, Wanxuan Sun, Cheng Yang et al.ACL 2025
- LongGenBench: Benchmarking Long-Form Generation in Long Context LLMsYuhao Wu, Ming Shan Hee, Zhiqiang Hu, Roy Ka-Wei LeeICLR 2025
