GeoAgent: Contract-Constrained LLM Agents for Seismic Data Processing
Large language models (LLMs) can drive scientific software through function calling, but free-form tool use is fragile on long, data-dependent processing chains. Models omit arguments, invent units, feed the previous artifact into the wrong input, and report completion without a verifiable product. We present GeoAgent, an agent system for seismic data processing built on Madagascar's roughly 1{,}965 command-line programs. GeoAgent exposes 54 operator agents (51 generated from a declarative specification), retrieves from an index of 1{,}937 operators, and encodes the processing flow as a nine-stage state graph. Four explicit contracts---named artifacts, input resolution, parameter takeover, and artifact validation---move everything the graph can determine out of the model's discretion. A deterministic geometry tool parses the self-describing SPS/RPS/XPS and SEG-Y headers, cross-checks eight consistency conditions, and reproduces the reference shell recipe exactly. The system runs in containers with session- and task-level isolation, bounded execution, and defenses against silent failures. On a 2-D land dataset, the nine-stage pipeline completes in about six to eleven minutes and yields a verified artifact at every stage, while retrieval reduces per-turn tool context from about 12k to 2k tokens. We report the design, deployment experience, and motivating failure modes.