SharedKV-BT: Node-Local Typed Decisions for Behavior-Tree Agents
Organizations: Microsoft
Abstract
Agent tasks require sequences of interdependent decisions. Autoregressive models support more flexible decision interfaces than conventional classifiers but incur the latency of token-by-token generation. Recent shared-prefix methods reduce this cost by reusing encoded context and scoring multiple decisions in parallel, but do not model decision dependencies or verify execution. We propose SharedKV-BT, where each active node of a behavior tree (BT) exposes stage-local fields and candidates, and Shared-KV scores the candidates in parallel and passes the selected decision to a separate execution system. We tested SharedKV-BT on robot manipulation, mobile navigation, and computer-use tasks. Across three tasks, SharedKV-BT made typed decisions 2.36-4.15 times faster than prompt-matched autoregressive decoding. On the manipulation task, node-local Shared-KV improved joint decision accuracy from 75% to 94% and closed-loop success from 0% to 60%. Fixed-score policy replay showed that stage gating prevented out-of-order actions and external postconditions prevented premature completion.
Figures & tables
| Context | Matched batch | End-to-end comparison | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full prefix (ms) | Shared-KV (ms) | Speedup | Shared-KV (ms) | Constrained AR (ms) | Speedup | |
| Stack | 99.8 | 413.8 | ||||
| NavigateKitchen | 121.4 | 286.0 | ||||
| Clock | 134.2 | 318.8 | ||||