The paper introduces Graph-Guided Quasimetric Dense Reward (G2QDR), a framework that learns a state connectivity model to predict pairwise connectivity strengths in asymmetric environments. These strengths are converted into scalar auxiliary dense rewards, offering continuous guidance across hierarchical levels. G2QDR can be integrated into any existing Goal-Conditioned Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning architecture and shows empirical performance improvements in sparse reward settings with modest computational cost.
By Shuyuan Zhang, Zihan Wang, Xiao-Wen Chang, Doina Precup
arXiv:2606. 06673v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Sparse rewards and heterogeneous task sequences remain persistent challenges in Reinforcement Learning (RL), often resulting in slow convergence, weak generalization, and inefficient exploration.
By Ujjwal Bhatta, Utsabi Dangol, Sumaly Bajracharya, Rodrigue Rizk, KC Santosh
arXiv:2608.29061v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Offline goal-conditioned reinforcement learning (GCRL) aims to learn policies for reaching diverse goals entirely from fixed trajectory data. Long-hori...
By Soohyun Choi, Seonvin Cho, Songnam Hong
arXiv:2606. 19476v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Effective machine learning depends not only on how we model data, but also on what data we choose to collect.
By Eric Elmoznino, Sangnie Bhardwaj, Johannes von Oswald, Rajai Nasser, Blaise Ag\"uera y Arcas, Jo\~ao Sacramento, Rif A. Saurous, Guillaume Lajoie
arXiv:2609.05650v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: We propose a reinforcement learning framework in which exploration is driven by intrinsic curiosity, designed for scenarios where environments are non-...
By Armando Vieira
arXiv:2607. 23726v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Exploration in sparse-reward long-horizon tasks poses significant challenges for reinforcement learning.
By Zahra Abdalla Elashaal, Afef Hfaiedh, Nahla Khraief, Issmail Ellabib, Giansalvo Cirrincione
arXiv:2508. 14751v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: We study goal-conditioned reinforcement learning in partially observable environments with sparse rewards and large, structured goal spaces.
By Thomas Carta, Cl\'ement Romac, Loris Gaven, Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, Olivier Sigaud, Sylvain Lamprier
The paper introduces a method that integrates action abstraction into policy optimization for reinforcement learning and generative flow networks. By iteratively identifying frequently used action subsequences in high‑reward trajectories and treating them as single high‑level actions, the approach expands the action space and improves sample efficiency. Experiments on synthetic and real‑world tasks show that this technique discovers diverse high‑reward states more effectively, especially on challenging exploration problems, and yields interpretable abstract actions that reflect the underlying reward structure.
By Oussama Boussif, L\'ena N\'ehale Ezzine, Joseph D Viviano, Micha{\l} Koziarski, Moksh Jain, Esmeralda S. Whitammer, Emmanuel Bengio, Rim Assouel, Yoshua Bengio
arXiv:2607. 08647v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: As autonomous agents are increasingly deployed across diverse operational contexts, aligning their behavior with human intent demands reward functions that remain robust to such changes rather than overfitting to any single environment.
By Ali Larian, Qian Lin, Chang Zong Wu, Daniel S. Brown
arXiv:2607. 04963v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Reinforcement Learning (RL) is the dominant paradigm for training Large Language Model (LLM) agents on long-horizon tasks.
By Qiuyi Qi, Tian Liang, Mutian Bao, Jinjian Zhang, Dongnan Liu, Wei Zhou, Linjian Mo, Ming Kong, Jie Liu, Feng Zhang, Qiang Zhu
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:2605. 11020v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) is typically formulated as maximizing entropy subject to matching the distribution of expert trajectories.
By Anish Diwan, Davide Tateo, Christopher E. Mower, Haitham Bou-Ammar, Jan Peters, Oleg Arenz