> Canonical page: https://posttrainllm.com/artifacts/vibethinker-3b-agentic-distilled

Missing-evidence case study Blocked 2026-07-03

# VibeThinker-3B Agentic Distilled

The experiment asked whether a reasoning-strong 3B base could become a better tool-calling student than Qwen3-4B. The fused weights were published, but the repository does not preserve a current before/after eval, regression review, or ship decision. This page is the honest case study of an unfinished proof: the artifact exists; the conclusion does not.

- distillation
- agentic
- VibeThinker
- inconclusive

## Headline Numbers

Evidence class applies to each value: measured = retained evaluation or runtime result; historical = recorded result not freshly reproduced; derived = calculated or decided from records; observed = current artifact state; not-measured = an explicit evidence gap.

Public weights

 Yes Hugging Face model repository observed

Current agentic eval

 Missing no promoted before/after result not-measured

Reasoning retention

 Unknown no post-distillation regression gate not-measured

Decision

 Inconclusive weights are not a ship decision derived

## Competitive Context

**System**

**Metric**

**Score**

**Size / Class**

**Comparable?**

**Readout**

 VibeThinker-3B agentic distilled current tool-calling gate not recorded 3B Direct The intended candidate exists, but the required result is absent.

 VibeThinker-3B MLX base historical GSM8K sanity slice 40/40 3B Directional Shows the source base's reasoning signal, not retained reasoning after agentic distillation.

 Qwen3-4B ReST recorded file-ops depth / breadth 100% / 65% 4B Not comparable The measured incumbent research candidate; no matched VibeThinker result exists.

Direct rows share this artifact's eval setup. Directional rows are useful market context but should not be read as leaderboard claims.

## Evidence audit

**Required case-study element**

**State**

**What can be said**

 Base identity Recorded VibeThinker-3B MLX reasoning base

 Distilled fused weights Public Artifact is preserved

 Frozen baseline Missing No before number

 Current candidate eval Missing No after number

 Breadth/reasoning regression Missing Retention unknown

 Ship decision Absent Inconclusive archive only

## Release Blockers

### No current before/after eval

Public weights alone cannot establish whether tool-calling improved or whether reasoning regressed.

 Unblock: Freeze a matched baseline, agentic primary gate, and reasoning/breadth regression gate; then run both once under the same harness.

### No specialist package or routing decision

The repository has no canonical package metadata that defines safe use or a ship/reject outcome.

 Unblock: Only package after the frozen eval produces a defensible decision.

## Evidence

- [Hugging Face model](https://huggingface.co/posttrainllm/vibethinker-3b-agentic-distilled)
- [Attempt ledger](https://posttrainllm.com/docs/attempt-ledger/)
- [VibeThinker method review](https://posttrainllm.com/docs/learn/diversity-driven-small-model-reasoning/)
- [Public artifact registry](https://posttrainllm.com/docs/factory/public-artifacts/)

## Next Release Action

Leave the weights public but unpromoted. If this lineage becomes active again, start with an evidence-only baseline/candidate evaluation—not more training.