Credit Assignment in RL

RL: Reinforcement Learning

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32 papers in the last four weeks, up 220% on the four weeks before. 0.3% of all new papers.

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RewardWeaver: Long-Horizon Interactive Learning for Language Agents via Self-Evolving Reward Adaptation
Oct 7, 2026Hengbo Xiao, Boyao Zhang, Purui Liu +4RL for LLM Agents Rubric-Based RL
AGAR: a reinforcement learning substrate for LLM program evolution
Oct 6, 2026Haoran Li, Zengle Ge, Xiaomin Yuan +11LLM-Based Program Synthesis RL for Code Generation
University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences · Baidu · Tsinghua University +2
VETTA: Coordinating Turn- and Token-Level Credit Assignment for Multi-Turn LLM Agents
Oct 6, 2026Jiaju Chen, Min Yang, Jinghua Piao +4Token-Level Credit Assignment Credit Assignment in RL
University of Science and Technology of China · Zhongguancun Academy · Shandong University +2
RELACE: retrospective likelihood-based action credit estimation for long-horizon language agents
Oct 5, 2026Sayak Chakrabarti, Sathish Reddy IndurthiGroup Relative Policy Optimization Credit Assignment in RL
Columbia University · Zoom Communications, Inc.
Minimal Witness Reinforcement Learning
Oct 5, 2026T. Y. Tsui, Zihao Ye, Pengxiang Cai +3RL for Language Model Reasoning Credit Assignment in RL
University of Pennsylvania · Shanghai AI Laboratory
Dependency-Aware Reward Shaping for Agentic Reinforcement Learning
Oct 1, 2026Ziyi Chen, Yan Zhang, Jianhui Wei +2RL for Language Models Agentic RL
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign · National University of Singapore · Zhejiang University +1
My FAULT: Self-Diagnosis as Credit Assignment in Self-Evolving Agentic Reinforcement Learning
Oct 1, 2026Yihua Zhu, Qianying Liu, Weixu Qiao +10Agentic RL Credit Assignment in RL
Alibaba Group · Kyoto University · NII LLMC +6
SHARPO: Segment-Level Credit Assignment for Agentic Reinforcement Learning
Sep 30, 2026Xinchen Du, Zhengze Zhou, Wenhui Zhu +4Agentic RL Group Relative Policy Optimization
LinkedIn Corporation · Georgia Institute of Technology
Semifactual Credit-Augmented Policy Optimization
Sep 30, 2026Junshu Pan, Zhizhang Fu, Shulin Huang +5Prompt Sensitivity RL for Language Model Reasoning
Zhejiang University · Westlake University · Shanghai Innovation Institute +1
Advancing Entropy-Level Credit Assignment in RLVR via Proximal Entropy Policy Optimization
Sep 30, 2026Yun Kim, Nojun KwakRL for Language Model Reasoning Credit Assignment in RL
Seoul National University
Trust the Critic More
Sep 30, 2026Kaiyue Wen, Luke Bailey, Arvind Mahankali +1RL for Language Model Reasoning Credit Assignment in RL
Stanford University
PRICE the Action Chunks: Physical Relational Credit Assignment for Embodied Reinforcement Learning
Sep 30, 2026Yangang Zou, Jiajun Lu, Weitao Zhou +6Credit Assignment in RL Step-Level Credit Assignment in RL
School of Data Science, Fudan University · Shanghai Innovation Institute · Beihang University +4
Privy to the Foil: Recasting Value Estimation with a Self-Privileged Critic for RLVR
Sep 29, 2026Kun Liang, Chenming Tang, Clive Bai +5Value Function Estimation RL for Language Model Reasoning
School of Computer Science, Peking University · National Key Laboratory for Multimedia Information Processing, Peking University · Foundation Model Department, Tencent
How Can Recommendation Feedback Evolve Agent Memory?
Sep 29, 2026Shanwen Mao, Mingming Li, Hao Zhang +4Credit Assignment in RL Agent Memory Management
Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China · Alibaba Group, Hangzhou, China · Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Learning from Viable Failure Prefixes: Milestone Viability Potential Policy Optimization for Long-Horizon LLM Agents
Sep 29, 2026Qi Zhou, Yuanfan LiCredit Assignment in RL Long-Horizon LLM Agents
Xi’an Jiaotong University
Visual sensitivity is not claim retractability: persistence-aware credit assignment for multimodal reinforcement learning
Sep 29, 2026Zhongan Bi, Kepeng Lin, Xuanang Gao +2Counterfactual Evaluation of VLMs Credit Assignment in RL
Zhejiang University · Huazhong University of Science and Technology · Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Beyond Saying Less: Fine-Grained Alignment for Informative and Faithful Vision-Language Models
Sep 28, 2026Xingming Long, Jie Zhang, Yuecong Min +2Credit Assignment in RL Step-Level Credit Assignment in RL
State Key Laboratory of AI Safety, Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences · University of Chinese Academy of Sciences · Zhongguancun Academy
SpikeCredit: Temporal Credit Carrier for Reinforcement Learning with Sparse Rewards
Sep 28, 2026Yingchao Yu, Pengfei Sun, Wenxuan Pan +4Credit Assignment in RL Step-Level Credit Assignment in RL
School of Information and Intelligent Science, Donghua University, Shanghai, China · School of Engineering, Westlake University, Hangzhou, China · Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom +1
ASCT: Attentive Search over Counterfactual Trees for Credit Assignment in Agentic Reinforcement Learning
Sep 28, 2026Yang Li, Jinhan Yang, hai liu +8Agentic RL Credit Assignment in RL
University of Hong Kong · The Chinese University of Hong Kong · Jiangxi Science and Technology Normal University +1
GraphHCA: Closed-Form Hindsight Credit Assignment for Long-Horizon LLM Agents
Sep 28, 2026Haodong Zhu, Yangyang Ren, Changbai Li +4Credit Assignment in RL Step-Level Credit Assignment in RL
Beihang University · Zhongguancun Academy · Communication University of China +1
UniOPSD: Unifying Outcome and Hindsight Feedback for Agentic Reinforcement Learning
Sep 28, 2026Zenghuang Fu, Zhaoyang Li, Qiuyuan Ai +8Agentic RL Credit Assignment in RL
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences · Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences · Peking University +3
Surprising Success, Repeated Failure: Entropy-Guided Credit Assignment for Exploration in LLM Reasoning
Sep 27, 2026Woongyeong Yeo, Minki Kang, Chanuk Lee +3RL for Language Model Reasoning Credit Assignment in RL
KAIST
Beyond Timestamps: Decision-Aligned On-Policy Distillation for Long-Horizon Agents
Sep 27, 2026Mingju Chen, Can Lv, Jinrong Liu +3Credit Assignment in RL Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Rewards
Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Future Blockchain and Privacy Computing, Beihang University · School of Artificial Intelligence, Beihang University · Tsinghua University
SLCA-GRPO: Resolving Cross-Segment Credit Misattribution in Tool-Calling RL
Sep 24, 2026Yan Zhan, Shaobo Liu, Qiunan Liu +7Group Relative Policy Optimization Credit Assignment in RL
Peking University · Shenzhen University · Tencent PCG QQ Team
When Does Action Credit Need Updating?
Sep 24, 2026Hongye Yang, Boxiao HuangCredit Assignment in RL Credit Assignment
College of Computing Georgia Institute of Technology
Back to the Definition: Estimating Step-Level Advantages via Trajectory Graphs for Agentic Reinforcement Learning
Sep 24, 2026Xincheng Yao, Haobo Fu, Weiming Liu +1Agentic RL Credit Assignment in RL
School of Information Science and Electronic Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. · Tencent AI Platform Department. · MoE Key Lab of Artificial Intelligence, AI Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
When and Where to Trust the Teacher: Unifying On-Policy Distillation and GRPO through Entropy-Calibrated Credit Assignment
Sep 23, 2026Jie Zhang, Jingxiao Yang, Zhehao Huang +2RL for Language Model Reasoning Group Relative Policy Optimization
Shanghai Jiao Tong University · Zhejiang University
ProCredit: From Outcome Rewards to Progress Credit in Agentic Reinforcement Learning
Sep 23, 2026Ming Ma, Yi Zhu, Yiran Zhong +7Agentic RL Credit Assignment in RL
Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences · University of Chinese Academy of Sciences · Tongyi Lab, Alibaba Group +2
Reinforcement Learning with Decomposed Subtasks
Sep 22, 2026Mattie Terzolo, Mikolaj Sacha, Ayan Sinha +1Group Relative Policy Optimization Credit Assignment in RL
Upwork
Critical-State RL: Diagnosing Trainable States for Multi-Turn Tool Use
Sep 21, 2026Zixiang Chen, Wenting Zhao, Zhepeng Cen +9Reinforcement Learning Credit Assignment in RL
Salesforce AI Research

Oct 7, 2026, cs.AIJ/K move · Enter open · S save

RewardWeaver: Long-Horizon Interactive Learning for Language Agents via Self-Evolving Reward Adaptation

Hengbo Xiao, Boyao Zhang, Purui Liu, Yuxuan Zheng+3

RL for LLM Agents Rubric-Based RL Reward Shaping Process Reward Models Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Rewards Credit Assignment in RL

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Reinforcement learning with verifiable rewards (RLVR) has driven substantial progress in domains where task outcomes can be reliably evaluated, but long-horizon interaction remains challenging due to sparse terminal feedback and difficult credit assignment. Process rewards provide denser supervision, yet the capabilities most relevant for training can change as the policy evolves: a behavior that is easy to evaluate or frequently deficient need not be the bottleneck currently limiting task success. We introduce RewardWeaver, a self-evolving reward adaptation framework for language agents in long-horizon interaction. RewardWeaver maintains a validated capability space in which the semantics of admitted Rubrics remain fixed, and closes the loop between policy optimization, task evaluation, failure attribution, and reward adaptation. After each training stage, it performs outcome-grounded backward attribution on low-outcome trajectories, aggregates recurrent and policy-controlled capability bottlenecks, and dynamically selects the corresponding process rewards for the next stage. Recurrent failures not covered by the existing capability space trigger a separate, controlled expansion procedure. We evaluate REWARDWEAVER on SOTOPIA, Amazon?HistoryPrice, and a newly constructed Sales Benchmark. Across social interaction, bilateral bargaining, and domain-specific sales, REWARDWEAVER establishes new state-of-the-art (SOTA) results. Ablations further demonstrate the importance of dynamic reward allocation, failure-grounded attribution, and stable semantics for admitted capabilities.

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Latest papers 171