Instruction-following ability is critical for deploying large language models in real-world applications, where downstream components depend on the output satisfying specific constraints. Modern deployments increasingly handle the full task in a single LLM call, with one prompt specifying a layered output whose overall artifact, structural sections, and nested fields must each satisfy concrete constraints.
arXiv:2410. 06458v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Instruction following is a key capability for LLMs.
By Thomas Palmeira Ferraz, Kartik Mehta, Yu-Hsiang Lin, Haw-Shiuan Chang, Shereen Oraby, Sijia Liu, Vivek Subramanian, Tagyoung Chung, Mohit Bansal, Nanyun Peng
arXiv:2608. 02639v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Production prompts rarely carry a single instruction.
By Atul Anand, Sourav Chattaraj
arXiv:2511. 04694v5 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: As large language model (LLM) based systems take on high-stakes roles in real-world decision-making, they must reconcile competing instructions from multiple sources within a single prompt context.
By Zishuo Zheng, Vidhisha Balachandran, Chan Young Park, Faeze Brahman, Sachin Kumar
Multimodal large language models have made rapid progress in video understanding, yet existing benchmarks largely rely on simple prompts and provide limited evidence about whether models can satisfy explicit output constraints. We introduce VCIFBench, a benchmark for evaluating complex instruction following in video understanding.
arXiv:2606. 09563v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: As LLMs are deployed as agents, reliable monitoring requires knowing not only what they output, but which instructions are steering their behavior.
By Gilad Gressel, Rahul Pankajakshan, Julia Diament, Efim Hudis, Krishnashree Achuthan, Yisroel Mirsky
arXiv:2602. 14696v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Instruction fine-tuning of large language models (LLMs) often involves selecting a subset of instruction training data from a large candidate pool, using a small query set from the target task.
By Nihal V. Nayak, Paula Rodriguez-Diaz, Neha Hulkund, Sara Beery, David Alvarez-Melis
arXiv:2606. 07520v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Instruction Following (IF) is a core capability of LLMs, requiring strict adherence to diverse constraints, ranging from verifiable ones (e.
By Yirong Zeng, Yufei Liu, Xiao Ding, Yutai Hou, Yuxian Wang, Wu Ning, Haonan Song, Dandan Tu, Qixun Zhang, Yuxiang He, Bibo Cai, Ting Liu
arXiv:2606. 03624v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Large Reasoning Models (LRMs) have demonstrated impressive capabilities in many tasks, yet they struggle with reliably following multiple instructions, either by failing to satisfy individual constraints or by struggling to balance competing constraints simultaneously.
By Zhengyi Zhao, Shubo Zhang, Huimin Wang, Zezhong Wang, Yutian Zhao, Yefeng Zheng, Binyang Li, Yulan He, Kam-Fai Wong, Xian Wu
arXiv:2606. 09027v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Large Language Models enable flexible natural-language planning but remain unreliable in determinism-critical domains due to their probabilistic nature.
By Meilin Chen, Zepeng Zhai, Jiaxuan Zhao, Yuan Lu
arXiv:2608. 05161v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Instruction-tuned LLMs are deployed into environments where domains evolve, yet extending a fine-tuned model's capabilities without full retraining remains an unsolved practical challenge.
By Josh McGiff, Salma Mekaoui, Robert Shanahan, Nikola S. Nikolov
arXiv:2508. 09125v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Instruction following has catalyzed the recent era of Large Language Models (LLMs) and is the foundational skill underpinning more advanced capabilities such as reasoning and agentic behaviors.
By Mian Zhang, Shujian Liu, Sixun Dong, Ming Yin, Yebowen Hu, Xun Wang, Simin Ma, Song Wang, Sathish Reddy Indurthi, Haoyun Deng, Zhiyu Zoey Chen, Kaiqiang Song