arXiv:2609.36178v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO) has become a promising approach for training large language model agents. However, its uniform assignment o...
By Dongwon Jung, Hemanth Neelgund Ramesh, Yifan Wang, Xiaomin Li, Yuexing Hao, Yu Hu, Muhao Chen, Varun Chandrasekaran, Andrzej Banburski-Fahey, Jaron Lanier
The paper introduces ProAS, a Progress‑Aware Advantage Shaping framework designed to improve critic‑free reinforcement learning for large language model agents. ProAS uses a dynamic Agentic Reference Graph to provide fine‑grained credit assignment through Masking Unreasonable Incentives and Asymmetric Penalty Redistribution, avoiding the uniform advantage broadcast that can reinforce invalid actions. Experiments on Qwen2.5‑1.5B‑Instruct and Qwen2.5‑7B‑Instruct show that ProAS raises baseline success rates to 91.9% and 94.3% on ALFWorld and 66.7% and 70.8% on WebShop, while speeding up training convergence up to 2.44× and remaining robust to imperfect reference graphs.
By Bowen Ding, Mingda Wan, Yuhan Chen, Jiyao Yuan, Qi Zhu, Futing Wang, Heyuan Deng, Fei Mi, Lifeng Shang, Tao Lin
Reinforcement learning (RL) has emerged as the primary paradigm for optimizing Large Language Model (LLM) agents, yet efficient critic-free algorithms (e.g., GRPO) suffer from a fundamental uniform cr...
arXiv:2610.19103v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Group-based reinforcement learning enables large language model agents to learn from sparse outcome rewards in long-horizon tasks. Recent methods deriv...
By Huiwen Han, Ziyao Zeng, Zihao Zhu, Sisong Bei, Hao Wang, Hongyu Xu, Yan Han, Degui Zhi, Zhiwen Fan
arXiv:2607. 22724v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Group-based policy optimization has been increasingly used to train large language model (LLM) agents from sparse outcome rewards by comparing trajectories or steps within a group.
By Kaibing Yang, Guangfeng Cai, Shengtian Yang, Shuo He, Yu Li, Mengyi Liu, Pengwei Chen, Jun Xu, Lei Feng
Contrastive Branch Policy Optimization (CBPO) is a reinforcement learning method that separates the allocation of a fixed rollout budget from the translation of branch outcomes into token-level credit. It uses generation entropy to screen branch positions, path- and node-level decay to distribute the budget, and Contrastive Branch Value (CBV) to estimate local decision sensitivity without changing reward signs. CBPO partitions trajectories into non-overlapping credit segments, preventing duplicated gradients and enabling fine-grained credit assignment using only outcome rewards.
By Ying Wang, Changlin Qiu, Bang Lin, Linbo Jin, Wen Jiang, Zhe Sun, Jingli Yang
arXiv:2606. 32017v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Agentic reinforcement learning requires assigning credit to environment-facing actions such as searches, clicks, edits, navigation commands, and object interactions.
By Yuanda Xu, Zhengze Zhou, Hejian Sang, Xiaomin Li, Jiaxin Zhang, Xinchen Du, Zhipeng Wang, Alborz Geramifard
arXiv:2608. 05102v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Long-horizon search agents must make multiple sequential actions (steps) to search, retrieve, verify, and integrate evidence to reach a final answer.
By Yijun Lu, Rui Ye, Jiajun Wang, Yuwen Du, Tian Jin, Songhua Liu, Siheng Chen
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
arXiv:2609.24174v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Long-horizon language agents receive sparse terminal feedback, while intermediate rubrics provide structured but potentially misspecified assessments o...
By Xuchun Hu
arXiv:2607. 25659v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Rubric-based reinforcement learning enriches language model training by evaluating model outputs against explicit criteria.
By Bo-Wen Zhang, Junwei He, Wen Wang, Song-Lin Lv, Wentao Ma, Rongyi Lin, Shuhan Zhong, Lan-Zhe Guo
arXiv:2606. 09961v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Training large language models (LLMs) as autonomous agents via reinforcement learning (RL) has enabled frontier models to achieve superhuman performance in long-horizon tasks.
By Yu Han, Kailing Li, Yang Jiao, Yulin Dai, Yuqian Fu, Linhai Zhuo, Tianwen Qian