Large language model (LLM) agents are usually improved by changing prompts, models, or hand-written workflows, while the execution harness around the model is treated as fixed infrastructure. We argue that this harness is itself a learnable control layer.
arXiv:2608. 05446v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Long-horizon LLM agents increasingly rely on external execution support to maintain state, track progress, invoke tools, verify outcomes, and reuse experience across interactions.
By Xuying Ning, Dongqi Fu, Tianxin Wei, Hanqing Zeng, Yuanchen Bei, Bingxuan Li, Zihao Li, Qifan Wang, Xiang Shen, Yifan Wu, Jiayi Liu, Hong Li, Yinglong Xia, Xiangjun Fan, Hanghang Tong, Jingrui He
arXiv:2601. 03555v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Training reliable tool-augmented agents remains a significant challenge, largely due to the difficulty of credit assignment in multi-step reasoning.
By Yuxuan Jiang, Francis Ferraro
arXiv:2608. 10357v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Long-horizon tool-using agents must reason over user goals, domain policies, tool calls, simulator state, and delayed verifiable rewards.
By Zelei Cheng, Amritansh Mishra, Sambit Sahu, William Campbell
arXiv:2607. 25415v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Production LLM agents are increasingly assembled from a frozen model wrapped in a harness: a prompt template, a tool set, a memory/retrieval layer, a planning strategy, and a verification policy.
By Debjyoti Paul
arXiv:2606. 03892v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Training LLMs to orchestrate multi-step tool calls is held back by three coupled obstacles: realistic stateful execution environments are costly to build, synthetic training queries are often detached from the server's actual state (so the generated tool calls fail to execute), and recall-based RL rewards incentivize verbose tool-calling patterns.
By Ibrahim Abdelaziz, Asim Munawar, Kinjal Basu, Maxwell Crouse, Chulaka Gunasekara, Suneet Katrekar, Pavan Kapanipathi
The paper introduces Growing Harness, a training method that transforms recurring control logic in large language model agents into reusable executable code, reducing reliance on the model for task-specific decisions. By using strategy-free scaffolds, failure-guided code repair, and success-first gating, the approach learns a shared harness that improves performance across multiple benchmarks and model sizes. Experiments on BrowseComp-Plus and WebArena-Verified show significant gains in success rates and substantial reductions in LLM calls and inference cost compared to traditional tool‑calling agents.
By Laizhen Li, Jiarui Li, Juanjuan Zhao, Kejiang Ye, Ye Li, Cheng-zhong Xu, Xitong Gao
arXiv:2609.13739v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: Language-model agents are increasingly deployed through diverse harnesses that differ in system prompts, tool schemas, control loops, and trajectory...
By Hongliang Wei (Harbin Institute of Technology, Alibaba Cloud), Xiaobing Tu (Alibaba Cloud), Yinggui Wang (Alibaba Cloud), Zhengxi Liu (Alibaba Cloud), Rongkun Xue (Alibaba Cloud), Jinkui Ren (Alibaba Cloud), Xiantao Zhang (Alibaba Cloud), Debin Zhao (Harbin Institute of Technology), Xiaopeng Fan (Harbin Institute of Technology)
arXiv:2608. 06197v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Training large language model agents for long-horizon tool use typically relies on interactions with real or synthesized executable environments, whose construction and verification are costly, or on external simulators that are difficult to ground.
By Zishan Xu, Zhiyuan Yao, Yuxin Chen, Yifu Guo, Zhengxi Lu, Yuquan Lu, Jinyang Huang, Yan Xu, Yasheng Wang, Weinan Zhang, Xingshan Zeng, Weiwen Liu
LEGO-RL is a framework that connects native coding-agent harnesses with scalable policy‑gradient training without altering the harnesses’ internal flow. It achieves faithful optimization through in‑process LLM proxying, reliable execution via sandbox orchestration, and observable training with automated validation and a Live UI. Experiments show LEGO‑RL improves the Qwen3.5‑35B‑A3B model’s performance on three native harnesses while preserving high rollout‑training probability correlation.
By Yiming Du, Yuxin Jiang, Tao Yuan, Jianbo Dai, Shaowei Wang, Jierun Chen, Chaofan Tao, Xianzhi Yu, Lifeng Shang, Kam-Fai Wong, Xiaohui Li, Haoli Bai
The paper introduces SMITH, a reinforcement learning framework that jointly trains large language models to create and use tools within a single policy. By alternating between build and use tasks and employing separate reward signals for schema, code, and outcome failures, SMITH enables a 4B Qwen3 model to achieve state‑of‑the‑art accuracy on procedural reasoning benchmarks, outperforming larger untrained models and improving performance on downstream tasks when its tools are applied.
By Zhi Rui Tam, Chieh-Yen Lin, Yun-Nung Chen, Shao-Hua Sun, Hung-yi Lee
CAST is a critique‑aware training framework that transforms sparse task outcomes into action‑level supervision for both critique learning and policy optimization. By analyzing agent trajectories, CAST synthesizes structured rationales that explain action validity under partial observability, enabling the creation of richer training data. Fine‑tuned Qwen3‑family models trained with CAST show significant reliability gains, outperforming GPT‑OSS‑120B by over 10% on Retail tasks and improving Telehealth performance by 9% in an out‑of‑domain setting.
By Amir Saeidi, Zehua Zhang, Rishitosh Singh, Naman Ahuja, Vivek Gupta, Ali Payani, Gaowen Liu, Jayanth Srinivasa, Chitta Baral