Role-semantic assignments provide priors over how heterogeneous agents may coordinate, but cooperative MARL systems instead settle on conventions through decentralized, non-stationary learning, with no guarantee that the resulting structure matches those priors. We study this translation gap between theory-informed role expectations and learned coordination structure through a diagnostic combining a role-routing matrix, formation sensitivity ($Δ_{\max}$), and gradient/occlusion attribution across three-role MiniGrid and SMACv2 (Terran) environments.
arXiv:2606. 25073v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: In cooperative multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL), from a deployment perspective, it is challenging and expensive to train agents from scratch for each new environment or task.
By Animesh Animesh, Satheesh K Perepu, Kaushik Dey
SIGMA is a hierarchical framework for cooperative multi‑agent reinforcement learning that addresses structured noise effects—local correlations in noise-induced decision impacts among agents with strong task dependencies. It groups agents into adaptive local structures using density‑based clustering, aggregates intra‑group representations to smooth deviations, and then applies inter‑group attention to integrate information while respecting heterogeneous contributions. Experiments on noisy‑observation StarCraft II tasks confirm that SIGMA improves robustness to observation noise without sacrificing performance in clean environments.
By Li Mingqian
The paper introduces ROTATE, a regret-driven open‑ended training framework that jointly improves an Ad Hoc Teamwork (AHT) agent and an adversarial teammate generator. Unlike traditional two‑stage pipelines, ROTATE alternates between enhancing the agent and generating teammates that specifically probe its collaboration weaknesses. Experiments on Overcooked and Level‑Based Foraging show that ROTATE outperforms existing baselines on unseen teammates, setting a new benchmark for robust, generalizable teamwork.
By Caroline Wang, Arrasy Rahman, Benjamin Nativi, Jiaxun Cui, Yoonchang Sung, Peter Stone
The paper introduces a process‑aware evaluation framework for cooperative multi‑agent reinforcement learning that supplements traditional outcome metrics with diagnostics of interference, coordinated task completion, participation, and coordination efficiency. Using the STAT testbed and two established benchmarks, the authors demonstrate that policies with similar returns can differ markedly in coordination behavior, and that reward shaping can alter coordination without affecting overall task return. The framework reveals distinct process signatures across spatial, task, and agent scaling and remains informative across different coordination mechanisms.
By Maria Ana Cardei, Matthew Landers, Afsaneh Doryab
arXiv:2607. 04972v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Deploying robot teams in the real world requires simultaneous adaptation to unseen environments, unknown partners, and varying team sizes, yet existing approaches often address these challenges in isolation under the closed-world assumption of fixed teammates.
By Yang Li, Feng Xue, Fan Mo, Yunhao Liu, Jianhong Wang, Ying Wen, Qingrui Zhang, Shaoshuai Mou, Wei Pan
arXiv:2609.39727v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Cooperative language-model agents must coordinate over long horizons and adapt to changing environments and to partners with unfamiliar conventions, ye...
By Oana Madalina Fron, Ojas Shirekar, Chirag Raman
arXiv:2511. 02687v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: The trajectory of AI development suggests that we will increasingly rely on agent-based systems powered by language models, composed of independently developed agents with different information, privileges, and tools.
By Tim R. Davidson, Adam Fourney, Saleema Amershi, Robert West, Eric Horvitz, Ece Kamar
arXiv:2606. 08340v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: As language models are increasingly deployed as autonomous agents, they must coordinate with others over long horizons in open-ended interactive tasks.
By Kale-ab Abebe Tessera, Andras Szecsenyi, Cameron Barker, Alexander Rutherford, Davide Paglieri, Aidan Scannell, Henry Gouk, Elliot J. Crowley, Tim Rockt\"aschel, Amos Storkey
arXiv:2603. 03555v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: As multi-agent Large Language Model (LLM) systems scale, evaluating their emergent coordination dynamics becomes increasingly critical.
By Brandon Yee, Pairie Koh
arXiv:2602. 20804v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Cooperative multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) is typically framed as a decentralised partially observable Markov decision process (Dec-POMDP), a setting whose hardness stems from two key challenges: partial observability and decentralised coordination.
By Kale-ab Tessera, Leonard Hinckeldey, Riccardo Zamboni, David Abel, Amos Storkey
arXiv:2608. 11949v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Roles provide an interpretable interface for organizing language-model agents, yet most multi-agent systems treat them as hand-written prompt labels disconnected from learned behavior and parameter updates.
By Zhou Liu, Chaoyang Han, Zewei Pan, Zeli Su, Wentao Zhang