Group-based reinforcement learning (RL) methods, such as GRPO and its variants, have become a leading paradigm for training reasoning and agentic large language models (LLMs). While their group-normal...
The paper introduces GRAFT, a Graph-based Faithful sTep-level credit-assignment framework that constructs a trajectory graph from rollout trajectories, recovers node state-values via Bellman iteration, and assigns step-level advantages based on node value differences. It also proposes Graph GAE to further reduce state-value estimation bias. Experiments on multi-turn agentic benchmarks demonstrate consistent improvements over GRPO and other recent agentic RL algorithms.
By Xincheng Yao, Haobo Fu, Weiming Liu, Chongyang Zhang
arXiv:2607. 04242v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Group-based reinforcement learning (RL) has become an effective paradigm for improving large language model agents on long-horizon interactive tasks.
By Mingxuan Fan, Peiyang Liu
arXiv:2602. 08335v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Integrating Large Language Models (LLMs) with external tools via multi-agent systems offers a promising new paradigm for decomposing and solving complex problems.
By Yanming Li, Xuelin Zhang, WenJie Lu, Ziye Tang, Maodong Wu, Haotian Luo, Tongtong Wu, Zijie Peng, Hongze Mi, Yibo Feng, Naiqiang Tan, Chao Huang, Lian Peng, Li Shen
The paper introduces Potential-Guided Policy Optimization (PGPO), a method for multi-turn agentic tasks that improves credit assignment by estimating empirical state potentials from anchor-state-group return statistics. PGPO derives action advantages from potential differences between adjacent states, enabling cross-trajectory credit propagation and finer-grained step-level credit assignment, especially within failed trajectories. Experiments on ALFWorld and WebShop demonstrate strong performance compared to recent group-based reinforcement learning methods, with negligible training overhead.
By Yuyao Zheng, Haipeng Sun, Junwei Bao, Lemao Liu, Hongfei Jiang, Yang Song, Dejing Dou
PGPO: Potential-Guided Policy Optimization for Multi-Turn Agentic Tasks proposes a new reinforcement learning approach that estimates empirical state potentials from anchor-state-group return statistics within each rollout group. By deriving action advantages from potential differences between adjacent states, PGPO enables cross‑trajectory credit propagation, providing finer‑grained step‑level credit assignment, especially within failed trajectories. Experiments on ALFWorld and WebShop demonstrate strong overall performance compared to recent group‑based RL methods, with negligible training overhead.
arXiv:2605. 13217v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Reinforcement learning has become a powerful paradigm for post-training large language model agents, yet credit assignment in multi-turn environments remains a challenge.
By Siyuan Zhu, Chao Yu, Rongxin Yang, Zongkai Liu, Jinjun Hu, Qiwen Chen, Yibo Zhang
TIGPO (Temporal Instance-Graph Policy Optimization) extends graph-based credit assignment for long-horizon LLM agents by maintaining a persistent transition graph per task across policy updates. It allocates rollout budgets to both new exploration and revisiting past tasks, pairing current rollouts with earlier ones to create cross‑temporal references that stabilize advantage estimation. Experiments on ALFWorld and WebShop show TIGPO consistently outperforms previous group‑based and graph‑based policy optimization methods.
By Jinwei Gan
arXiv:2606. 12384v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Recent advances in agentic Reinforcement Learning (RL) have substantially improved the multi-turn tool-use capabilities of large language model agents.
By Xucong Wang, Ziyu Ma, Yong Wang, Yuxiang Ji, Shidong Yang, Guanhua Chen, Pengkun Wang, Xiangxiang Chu
ArenaFlow is a hierarchical credit propagation framework designed to improve reinforcement learning for open-ended agent tasks. It uses tournament-based relative ranking to generate trajectory-level rewards and structured reflective evaluation to identify pivotal success steps, reusable strategy skills, and skill usage attribution. The framework propagates advantages to high-confidence steps and maintains a global skill memory, enabling more targeted optimization and reusable skill priors for future exploration.
By Qiang Zhang, Ruixue Ding, Fanrui Zhang, Xi Chen, Boli Chen, Shihang Wang, Yinfeng Huang, Yi Zheng, Pengjun Xie, Kaipeng Zhang, Jiawei Liu, Zheng-Jun Zha
Large Language Model (LLM) agents increasingly solve long-horizon tasks through multi-turn interactions with users and external tools. In these settings, relevant task information often unfolds over t...
PlanPO introduces a group planning-aware policy optimization method for multi-turn agentic large language models, addressing the issue of advantage collapse caused by treating all successful trajectories equally. By incorporating coarse-to-fine advantage signals that reflect differences in trajectory and turn lengths, PlanPO encourages agents to learn generalizable planning and generation behaviors. Experiments show a 27.2% average improvement over GRPO on benchmarks such as ALFWorld, WebShop, and SciWorld, with minimal extra training cost.
By Dayang Liang, Liyuan He, Xuan Feng, Shuxin Li, Bo An, Yunlong Liu