diff --git a/rdagent/components/coder/factor_coder/CoSTEER/evaluators.py b/rdagent/components/coder/factor_coder/CoSTEER/evaluators.py
index ccd08b456..ef480b4b1 100644
--- a/rdagent/components/coder/factor_coder/CoSTEER/evaluators.py
+++ b/rdagent/components/coder/factor_coder/CoSTEER/evaluators.py
@@ -505,6 +505,7 @@ def evaluate(
                         user_prompt=user_prompt,
                         system_prompt=system_prompt,
                         json_mode=True,
+                        seed=attempts,  # in case of useless retrying when cache enabled.
                     ),
                 )
                 final_decision = final_evaluation_dict["final_decision"]
diff --git a/rdagent/components/coder/factor_coder/factor.py b/rdagent/components/coder/factor_coder/factor.py
index f794e4c1f..95c0b53d3 100644
--- a/rdagent/components/coder/factor_coder/factor.py
+++ b/rdagent/components/coder/factor_coder/factor.py
@@ -89,7 +89,7 @@ def __init__(
 
     @staticmethod
     def link_data_to_workspace(data_path: Path, workspace_path: Path):
-        data_path = Path(data_path)
+        data_path = Path(data_path).absolute()  # in case of relative path that will be invalid when we change cwd.
         workspace_path = Path(workspace_path)
         for data_file_path in data_path.iterdir():
             workspace_data_file_path = workspace_path / data_file_path.name
diff --git a/rdagent/oai/llm_utils.py b/rdagent/oai/llm_utils.py
index 427ff0ab5..8cf410b61 100644
--- a/rdagent/oai/llm_utils.py
+++ b/rdagent/oai/llm_utils.py
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
 import uuid
 from copy import deepcopy
 from pathlib import Path
-from typing import Any
+from typing import Any, Optional
 
 import numpy as np
 import tiktoken
@@ -401,7 +401,10 @@ def build_messages(
         *,
         shrink_multiple_break: bool = False,
     ) -> list[dict]:
-        """build the messages to avoid implementing several redundant lines of code"""
+        """
+        build the messages to avoid implementing several redundant lines of code
+
+        """
         if former_messages is None:
             former_messages = []
         # shrink multiple break will recursively remove multiple breaks(more than 2)
@@ -440,7 +443,10 @@ def build_messages_and_create_chat_completion(
         if former_messages is None:
             former_messages = []
         messages = self.build_messages(
-            user_prompt, system_prompt, former_messages, shrink_multiple_break=shrink_multiple_break
+            user_prompt,
+            system_prompt,
+            former_messages,
+            shrink_multiple_break=shrink_multiple_break,
         )
         return self._try_create_chat_completion_or_embedding(
             messages=messages,
@@ -567,14 +573,21 @@ def _create_chat_completion_inner_function(  # noqa: C901, PLR0912, PLR0915
         *,
         json_mode: bool = False,
         add_json_in_prompt: bool = False,
+        seed: Optional[int] = None,
     ) -> str:
+        """
+        seed : Optional[int]
+            When retrying with cache enabled, it will keep returning the same results.
+            To make retries useful, we need to enable a seed.
+            This seed is different from `self.chat_seed` for GPT. It is for the local cache mechanism enabled by RD-Agent locally.
+        """
         # TODO: we can add this function back to avoid so much `self.cfg.log_llm_chat_content`
         if self.cfg.log_llm_chat_content:
             logger.info(self._build_log_messages(messages), tag="llm_messages")
         # TODO: fail to use loguru adaptor due to stream response
         input_content_json = json.dumps(messages)
         input_content_json = (
-            chat_cache_prefix + input_content_json
+            chat_cache_prefix + input_content_json + f"<seed={seed}/>"
         )  # FIXME this is a hack to make sure the cache represents the round index
         if self.use_chat_cache:
             cache_result = self.cache.chat_get(input_content_json)