arXiv Machine Learning

Self-evolving LLM agents with in-distribution Optimization

arXiv:2606. 07367v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Large Language Models (LLMs) have recently emerged as powerful controllers for interactive agents in complex environments, yet training them to perform reliable long-horizon decision making remains a fundamental challenge.

arXiv AI
Sep 10

Environments as Scaffold: Enriching Feedback to Bootstrap Self-Evolving Agents in Long-Horizon Tasks

The paper introduces Feedback‑Enriched Environments (FEEs) as a new approach to training large language models as autonomous agents for long‑horizon tasks. By shifting from action guidance to observation enrichment during later stages of exploration, FEEs improve performance across SciWorld and BFCL benchmarks with various Qwen3 model scales and RL algorithms. The study shows that FEEs stabilize training, promote proactive exploration, embed environmental guidance into policy weights, and highlight intra‑group feedback consistency as key for stable optimization.

By Hongbang Yuan, Zhuoran Jin, Yixin Cao
arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 25

Neglected Free Lunch from Post-training: Progress Advantage for LLM Agents

arXiv:2606. 26080v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Process reward models enable fine-grained, step-level evaluation of LLMs, yet building them for agentic settings remains prohibitively difficult: long-horizon interactions, irreversible actions, and stochastic environment feedback make both human annotation and Monte Carlo estimation infeasible at scale.

By Changdae Oh, Wendi Li, Seongheon Park, Samuel Yeh, Tanwi Mallick, Sharon Li
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 18

Improving Online Reinforcement Learning via Bidirectional Behavior Prior Distillation

The paper introduces Bidirectional Behavior Prior Distillation (B2PD), a method that uses action‑value priors to train a conditional variational autoencoder for generating high‑value behavior support. These expert behavior priors are then distilled into the online reinforcement learning agent, reducing inefficient exploration and stabilizing policy updates. Experiments on state‑ and pixel‑based tasks show that B2PD improves sample efficiency while maintaining stable learning dynamics.

By Gong Gao, Xiao Lai, Jiaji Shen, Ning Jia, Xianhui Liu, Weidong Zhao