Large language model (LLM)-driven evolution has shown promise for program search and algorithm discovery, but relying on strong models throughout long evolutionary runs is costly. A natural alternative is to combine cheap and strong models under a fixed inference budget.
arXiv:2605.29268v3 Announce Type: replace-cross
Abstract: LLM-guided evolutionary search (Evolve systems) has reached state-of-the-art results on mathematical and combinatorial tasks, yet most existi...
By Sixue Xing, Haoyu He, Kerui Wu, Zhuo Yang, Haozheng Luo, Tianfan Fu, Aarthy Nagarajan
arXiv:2606. 29082v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Would experience designing faster GPU kernels also help close in on a long-standing open mathematical conjecture?
By Young-Jun Lee, Seungone Kim, Minki Kang, Alistair Cheong Liang Chuen, Zerui Chen, Seungho Han, Taehee Jung, Dongyeop Kang
arXiv:2609.00023v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: In this paper, we introduce ES-AHD, a novel framework that fundamentally integrates Evolution Strategy (ES) into Large Language Model (LLM)-driven Au...
By Yutao Lai, Kezhao Lai, Hai-Lin Liu, Yuping Wang, Ping Guo
arXiv:2608. 10694v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Evolutionary optimization of LLM prompts and agentic programs (e.
By Tal Oved, Roi Pony, Oshri Naparstek, Udi barzelay
The paper critiques the common practice of evaluating large‑language‑model (LLM) evolutionary search methods using a single seed and fixed iteration budget, arguing that this approach is insufficient. By testing three search strategies across five optimization tasks and varying both the number of seeds (width) and iterations (depth), the authors find that optimal budget allocation depends on the strategy, task, and total budget, and that strategy rankings shift with different budgets. They propose a measurement protocol that maps the seeds‑by‑iterations frontier and offers practical guidance for researchers.
By Tal Oved, Roi Pony, Oshri Naparstek, Udi Barzelay
COBRA‑Skills is a new framework that treats skill optimization for large language model agents as a budgeted sequential problem over a dynamically evolving candidate set. It uses contextual‑bandit prioritization to focus evaluations on promising or informative candidates and refines the skill population based on execution feedback. In experiments across six agent benchmarks and three target models, COBRA‑Skills outperforms existing methods, cuts optimization cost by 55–58 % compared to SkillOpt, and requires only 50 unique optimization examples per benchmark.
By Pingchen Lu, Xiangyi Wang, Xiang Li, Jie Mao, Zikun Qu, Junfeng Luo, Yao Shu, Bryan Kian Hsiang Low, Zhongxiang Dai
arXiv:2607. 29241v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Optimizing modern recommender models still depends heavily on engineers manually iterating over architectural, objective, and training-strategy changes.
By Haoran Ling, Yuecheng Li, Zeyu Song, Jing Yao, Shuwen Kang, Chi Lu, Wenjin Wu, Peng Jiang
Successful mutation strategies in evolutionary code search may contain reusable knowledge that is useful beyond a single run, and in some cases may transfer across related tasks and domains. However, existing LLM-driven evolutionary frameworks largely discard such knowledge, repeatedly rediscovering similar ideas and limiting opportunities for cross-run and cross-task learning.
arXiv:2607. 23765v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) achieve impressive performance across multiple domains, but using the most capable model for every query is prohibitive at scale.
By Yifei Li, Zihui Gao, Laks V. S. Lakshmanan
arXiv:2609.38639v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: LLM-guided evolutionary search can discover complex programs, but existing methods mostly only save candidate programs and fitness scores while discard...
By Ethan Lin, Jinming Nian, Yi Fang
The paper introduces a self‑evolving harness framework where a frozen language‑model agent first solves tasks and then edits its own harness based on run records. Using a 49‑line seed harness, the evolved harness improves average scores on in‑distribution benchmarks by 4.48 points and on out‑of‑distribution benchmarks by 12.64 points, surpassing Codex on the former and matching it on the latter. Continued evolution on a specific out‑of‑distribution benchmark further raises performance, and the study analyzes emergent mechanisms such as output truncation and history compaction.
By Qiankai Xu