mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Beyond Chain-of-Thought: A Survey of Chain-of-X Paradigms for LLMs

arXiv 2404.15676 ↗First posted 24 Apr 2024cs.CL cs.AIcited by 48

On the map: LLM reasoning → Prompting and chain-of-thought reasoning

Abstract (arXiv)

Chain-of-Thought (CoT) has been a widely adopted prompting method, eliciting impressive reasoning abilities of Large Language Models (LLMs). Inspired by the sequential thought structure of CoT, a number of Chain-of-X (CoX) methods have been developed to address various challenges across diverse domains and tasks involving LLMs. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey of Chain-of-X methods for LLMs in different contexts. Specifically, we categorize them by taxonomies of nodes, i.e., the X in CoX, and application tasks. We also discuss the findings and implications of existing CoX methods, as well as potential future directions. Our survey aims to serve as a detailed and up-to-date resource for researchers seeking to apply the idea of CoT to broader scenarios.

Key facts. Cited by 48 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Prompting and chain-of-thought reasoning, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 72 of its 97 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 24 Apr 2024.

Builds on

72 of 97 references.

Closest ancestors · 16

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2024Recursive Chain-of-Feedback Prevents Performance Degradation from Redundant Prompting5 Feb
  2. 2024Demystifying Chains, Trees, and Graphs of Thoughts25 Jan
  3. 2023Towards Better Chain-of-Thought Prompting Strategies: A Survey8 Oct
  4. 2023Navigate through Enigmatic Labyrinth A Survey of Chain of Thought Reasoning: Advances, Frontiers and Future27 Sep
  5. 2023Knowledge-Driven CoT: Exploring Faithful Reasoning in LLMs for Knowledge-intensive Question Answering25 Aug
  6. 2023Symbolic Chain-of-Thought Distillation: Small Models Can Also "Think" Step-by-Step24 Jun
  7. 2023Boosting Language Models Reasoning with Chain-of-Knowledge Prompting10 Jun
  8. 2023Tab-CoT: Zero-shot Tabular Chain of Thought28 May
  9. 2023MultiTool-CoT: GPT-3 Can Use Multiple External Tools with Chain of Thought Prompting26 May
  10. 2023LogiCoT: Logical Chain-of-Thought Instruction-Tuning20 May
  11. 2023Cue-CoT: Chain-of-thought Prompting for Responding to In-depth Dialogue Questions with LLMs19 May
  12. 2023Verify-and-Edit: A Knowledge-Enhanced Chain-of-Thought Framework5 May
4 more
  1. 2022Towards Understanding Chain-of-Thought Prompting: An Empirical Study of What Matters20 Dec
  2. 2022Program of Thoughts Prompting: Disentangling Computation from Reasoning for Numerical Reasoning Tasks22 Nov
  3. 2022Large Language Models are Zero-Shot Reasoners24 May
  4. 2022Self-Consistency Improves Chain of Thought Reasoning in Language Models21 Mar

Other references · 56

  1. 2022Training language models to follow instructions with human feedbackcited by 15,712
  2. 2022ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Modelscited by 8,355
  3. 2023Self-Refine: Iterative Refinement with Self-Feedbackcited by 3,317
  4. 2023Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Large Language Models: A Surveycited by 2,185
  5. 2023The Rise and Potential of Large Language Model Based Agents: A Surveycited by 1,422
  6. 2021Scaling Language Models: Methods, Analysis & Insights from Training Gophercited by 1,199
  7. 2022Measuring and Narrowing the Compositionality Gap in Language Modelscited by 1,054
  8. 2022Interleaving Retrieval with Chain-of-Thought Reasoning for Knowledge-Intensive Multi-Step Questionscited by 911
  9. 2023Vision-Language Models for Vision Tasks: A Surveycited by 834
  10. 2023ChatEval: Towards Better LLM-based Evaluators through Multi-Agent Debatecited by 724
  11. 2023Distilling Step-by-Step! Outperforming Larger Language Models with Less Training Data and Smaller Model Sizescited by 710
  12. 2023Instruction Tuning for Large Language Models: A Surveycited by 617
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  1. 2023SpeechGPT: Empowering Large Language Models with Intrinsic Cross-Modal Conversational Abilitiescited by 518
  2. 2023Think-on-Graph: Deep and Responsible Reasoning of Large Language Model on Knowledge Graphcited by 235
  3. 2023Red-Teaming Large Language Models using Chain of Utterances for Safety-Alignmentcited by 213
  4. 2023You Only Look at Screens: Multimodal Chain-of-Action Agentscited by 185
  5. 2024Chain-of-Table: Evolving Tables in the Reasoning Chain for Table Understandingcited by 185
  6. 2023Chain-of-Note: Enhancing Robustness in Retrieval-Augmented Language Modelscited by 180
  7. 2024Large Language Models(LLMs) on Tabular Data: Prediction, Generation, and Understanding -- A Surveycited by 157
  8. 2024Android in the Zoo: Chain-of-Action-Thought for GUI Agentscited by 156
  9. 2023ChatDB: Augmenting LLMs with Databases as Their Symbolic Memorycited by 136
  10. 2022Large Language Models Meet NL2Code: A Surveycited by 135
  11. 2023DDCoT: Duty-Distinct Chain-of-Thought Prompting for Multimodal Reasoning in Language Modelscited by 124
  12. 2024Attacks, Defenses and Evaluations for LLM Conversation Safety: A Surveycited by 124
  13. 2023Deductive Verification of Chain-of-Thought Reasoningcited by 122
  14. 2023Chain-of-Knowledge: Grounding Large Language Models via Dynamic Knowledge Adapting over Heterogeneous Sourcescited by 121
  15. 2023Chain of Code: Reasoning with a Language Model-Augmented Code Emulatorcited by 120
  16. 2024Graph Chain-of-Thought: Augmenting Large Language Models by Reasoning on Graphscited by 116
  17. 2023Can Knowledge Graphs Reduce Hallucinations in LLMs? : A Surveycited by 92
  18. 2023Unified Human-Scene Interaction via Prompted Chain-of-Contactscited by 91
  19. 2023Retrieving Multimodal Information for Augmented Generation: A Surveycited by 84
  20. 2024Chain of LoRA: Efficient Fine-tuning of Language Models via Residual Learningcited by 80
  21. 2023Large Language Models Play StarCraft II: Benchmarks and A Chain of Summarization Approachcited by 79
  22. 2024RAT: Retrieval Augmented Thoughts Elicit Context-Aware Reasoning in Long-Horizon Generationcited by 75
  23. 2023Search-in-the-Chain: Interactively Enhancing Large Language Models with Search for Knowledge-intensive Taskscited by 73
  24. 2024KAM-CoT: Knowledge Augmented Multimodal Chain-of-Thoughts Reasoningcited by 60
  25. 2023CodeChain: Towards Modular Code Generation Through Chain of Self-revisions with Representative Sub-modulescited by 58
  26. 2023TableGPT: Towards Unifying Tables, Nature Language and Commands into One GPTcited by 57
  27. 2023From Sparse to Dense: GPT-4 Summarization with Chain of Density Promptingcited by 52
  28. 2024MineDreamer: Learning to Follow Instructions via Chain-of-Imagination for Simulated-World Controlcited by 52
  29. 2023Multimodal Automated Fact-Checking: A Surveycited by 51
  30. 2023EcomGPT: Instruction-tuning Large Language Models with Chain-of-Task Tasks for E-commercecited by 48
  31. 2024SpeechGPT-Gen: Scaling Chain-of-Information Speech Generationcited by 36
  32. 2023Chain of Natural Language Inference for Reducing Large Language Model Ungrounded Hallucinationscited by 34
  33. 2024Efficient Tool Use with Chain-of-Abstraction Reasoningcited by 33
  34. 2024L3GO: Language Agents with Chain-of-3D-Thoughts for Generating Unconventional Objectscited by 26
  35. 2024Which LLM to Play? Convergence-Aware Online Model Selection with Time-Increasing Banditscited by 26
  36. 2022Chain of Explanation: New Prompting Method to Generate Higher Quality Natural Language Explanation for Implicit Hate Speechcited by 25
  37. 2023Chain of Empathy: Enhancing Empathetic Response of Large Language Models Based on Psychotherapy Modelscited by 24
  38. 2024Chain-of-Layer: Iteratively Prompting Large Language Models for Taxonomy Induction from Limited Examplescited by 24

50 most cited of 56 All 56 (JSON)

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2024: 6; 2025: 28; 2026: 14.

48 papers.

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  1. 2025A Survey of Reinforcement Learning for Large Reasoning Modelscited by 175
  2. 2025Logical Reasoning in Large Language Models: A Surveycited by 52
  3. 2024FinRobot: An Open-Source AI Agent Platform for Financial Applications using Large Language Modelscited by 39
  4. 2025A Survey of Scientific Large Language Models: From Data Foundations to Agent Frontierscited by 34
  5. 2025Entropy-based Exploration Conduction for Multi-step Reasoningcited by 28
  6. 2024Calibrating Reasoning in Language Models with Internal Consistencycited by 27
  7. 2025ViTCoT: Video-Text Interleaved Chain-of-Thought for Boosting Video Understanding in Large Language Modelscited by 18
  8. 2025Achieving Time Series Reasoning Requires Rethinking Model Design, Tasks Formulation, and Evaluationcited by 15
  9. 2026Learning Global Hypothesis Space for Enhancing Synergistic Reasoning Chaincited by 15
  10. 2025SAND: Boosting LLM Agents with Self-Taught Action Deliberationcited by 14
  11. 2024OCEAN: Offline Chain-of-thought Evaluation and Alignment in Large Language Modelscited by 12
  12. 2025Understanding-in-Generation: Reinforcing Generative Capability of Unified Model via Infusing Understanding into Generationcited by 11
36 more
  1. 2026GR2: Generative Reasoning Re-rankercited by 11
  2. 2026DynVLA: Learning World Dynamics for Action Reasoning in Autonomous Drivingcited by 11
  3. 2025Visual-Aware CoT: Achieving High-Fidelity Visual Consistency in Unified Modelscited by 10
  4. 2026VLA-ATTC: Adaptive Test-Time Compute for VLA Models with Relative Action Critic Modelcited by 9
  5. 2024Blind Spot Navigation in Large Language Model Reasoning with Thought Space Explorercited by 7
  6. 2025Semantic Voting: A Self-Evaluation-Free Approach for Efficient LLM Self-Improvement on Unverifiable Open-ended Taskscited by 6
  7. 2025Simultaneous Multi-objective Alignment Across Verifiable and Non-verifiable Rewardscited by 5
  8. 2025LOGicalThought: Logic-Based Ontological Grounding of LLMs for High-Assurance Reasoningcited by 4
  9. 2025Putting on the Thinking Hats: A Survey on Chain of Thought Fine-tuning from the Perspective of Human Reasoning Mechanismcited by 4
  10. 2025L2V-CoT: Cross-Modal Transfer of Chain-of-Thought Reasoning via Latent Interventioncited by 4
  11. 2025Personalized Decision Modeling: Utility Optimization or Textualized-Symbolic Reasoningcited by 2
  12. 2024AMR-Evol: Adaptive Modular Response Evolution Elicits Better Knowledge Distillation for Large Language Models in Code Generationcited by 1
  13. 2024Can Stories Help LLMs Reason? Curating Information Space Through Narrativecited by 1
  14. 2025Bonsai: Interpretable Tree-Adaptive Grounded Reasoningcited by 1
  15. 2025Training with Pseudo-Code for Instruction Followingcited by 1
  16. 2025Learning Deliberately, Acting Intuitively: Unlocking Test-Time Reasoning in Multimodal LLMscited by 1
  17. 2025UniTransfer: Video Concept Transfer via Progressive Spatial and Timestep Decompositioncited by 1
  18. 2025Fine-Tuning LLMs to Analyze Multiple Dimensions of Code Review: A Maximum Entropy Regulated Long Chain-of-Thought Approachcited by 1
  19. 2026UPA: Unsupervised Prompt Agent via Tree-Based Search and Selectioncited by 1
  20. 2026What makes prompts a graph: necessary and sufficient conditions for prompt graph engineeringcited by 1
  21. 2026How to Ask the AI: A User Perspective Survey for Large Language Model Promptingcited by 1
  22. 2025Bridging Technology and Humanities: Evaluating the Impact of Large Language Models on Social Sciences Research with DeepSeek-R1cited by 0
  23. 2025Automated Meta Prompt Engineering for Alignment with the Theory of Mindcited by 0
  24. 2025MARCO: Meta-Reflection with Cross-Referencing for Code Reasoningcited by 0
  25. 2025RACE-Align: Retrieval-Augmented and Chain-of-Thought Enhanced Preference Alignment for Large Language Modelscited by 0
  26. 2025Generating Privacy Stories From Software Documentationcited by 0
  27. 2025GTA: Supervised-Guided Reinforcement Learning for Text Classification with Large Language Modelscited by 0
  28. 2025HiCoTraj:Zero-Shot Demographic Reasoning via Hierarchical Chain-of-Thought Prompting from Trajectorycited by 0
  29. 2025From generative AI to the brain: five takeawayscited by 0
  30. 2026SFCoT: Safer Chain-of-Thought via Active Safety Evaluation and Calibrationcited by 0
  31. 2026A Survey of Reinforcement Learning for Large Language Models under Data Scarcity: Challenges and Solutionscited by 0
  32. 2026eMoT: evolving Memory-of-Thought via Symbolic Anchoring and Memory Corrosioncited by 0
  33. 2026GR2 Technical Reportcited by 0
  34. 2026Concretized Proposition Prompting Resolves Composition-Knowledge Dichotomy in Large Language Modelscited by 0
  35. 2026Deep Interaction: An Efficient Human-AI Interaction Method for Large Reasoning Modelscited by 0
  36. 2026From Economic Agents to Agentic Economies: A Systems Blueprint for Economic World Modelscited by 0

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  2. 2023Chain-Of-Thought Prompting Under Streaming Batch: A Case Study
  3. 2024Understanding Chain-of-Thought in LLMs through Information Theory
  4. 2024ChainLM: Empowering Large Language Models with Improved Chain-of-Thought Prompting
  5. 2024Strategic Chain-of-Thought: Guiding Accurate Reasoning in LLMs through Strategy Elicitation
  6. 2025Reasoning Beyond Language: A Comprehensive Survey on Latent Chain-of-Thought Reasoning
  7. 2024Chain-of-Thought in Large Language Models: Decoding, Projection, and Activation
  8. 2024Chain of Evidences and Evidence to Generate: Prompting for Context Grounded and Retrieval Augmented Reasoning