mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

SelfGoal: Your Language Agents Already Know How to Achieve High-level Goals

arXiv 2406.04784 ↗First posted 7 Jun 2024cs.CL cs.AIcited by 21

On the map: LLM agents and tool use → General LLM agent frameworks and benchmarks

Abstract (arXiv)

Language agents powered by large language models (LLMs) are increasingly valuable as decision-making tools in domains such as gaming and programming. However, these agents often face challenges in achieving high-level goals without detailed instructions and in adapting to environments where feedback is delayed. In this paper, we present SelfGoal, a novel automatic approach designed to enhance agents' capabilities to achieve high-level goals with limited human prior and environmental feedback. The core concept of SelfGoal involves adaptively breaking down a high-level goal into a tree structure of more practical subgoals during the interaction with environments while identifying the most useful subgoals and progressively updating this structure. Experimental results demonstrate that SelfGoal significantly enhances the performance of language agents across various tasks, including competitive, cooperative, and deferred feedback environments. Project page: https://selfgoal-agent.github.io.

Key facts. Cited by 21 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in General LLM agent frameworks and benchmarks, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 32 of its 61 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 7 Jun 2024.

Builds on

32 of 61 references.

Closest ancestors · 6

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2024TwoStep: Multi-agent Task Planning using Classical Planners and Large Language Models25 Mar
  2. 2024TimeArena: Shaping Efficient Multitasking Language Agents in a Time-Aware Simulation8 Feb
  3. 2024TravelPlanner: A Benchmark for Real-World Planning with Language Agents2 Feb
  4. 2023SOTOPIA: Interactive Evaluation for Social Intelligence in Language Agents18 Oct
  5. 2023ExpeL: LLM Agents Are Experiential Learners20 Aug
  6. 2023SwiftSage: A Generative Agent with Fast and Slow Thinking for Complex Interactive Tasks27 May

Other references · 26

  1. 2020Language Models are Few-Shot Learnerscited by 32,199
  2. 2022ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Modelscited by 8,355
  3. 2023Reflexion: Language Agents with Verbal Reinforcement Learningcited by 4,064
  4. 2023Self-Refine: Iterative Refinement with Self-Feedbackcited by 3,317
  5. 2022Do As I Can, Not As I Say: Grounding Language in Robotic Affordancescited by 2,302
  6. 2023Voyager: An Open-Ended Embodied Agent with Large Language Modelscited by 2,081
  7. 2024Mixtral of Expertscited by 1,785
  8. 2022Inner Monologue: Embodied Reasoning through Planning with Language Modelscited by 1,057
  9. 2022Language Models as Zero-Shot Planners: Extracting Actionable Knowledge for Embodied Agentscited by 1,029
  10. 2023Reasoning with Language Model is Planning with World Modelcited by 846
  11. 2022Decomposed Prompting: A Modular Approach for Solving Complex Taskscited by 554
  12. 2023Plan-and-Solve Prompting: Improving Zero-Shot Chain-of-Thought Reasoning by Large Language Modelscited by 550
14 more
  1. 2022ScienceWorld: Is your Agent Smarter than a 5th Grader?cited by 298
  2. 2023REFINER: Reasoning Feedback on Intermediate Representationscited by 203
  3. 2017Deal or No Deal? End-to-End Learning for Negotiation Dialoguescited by 202
  4. 2023ADaPT: As-Needed Decomposition and Planning with Language Modelscited by 172
  5. 2023CLIN: A Continually Learning Language Agent for Rapid Task Adaptation and Generalizationcited by 88
  6. 2023Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is: Evaluating Strategic Planning and Execution of LLM Agents in an Auction Arenacited by 78
  7. 2024How Far Are We on the Decision-Making of LLMs? Evaluating LLMs' Gaming Ability in Multi-Agent Environmentscited by 66
  8. 2023Distilling Script Knowledge from Large Language Models for Constrained Language Planningcited by 45
  9. 2019Mapping State Space using Landmarks for Universal Goal Reachingcited by 44
  10. 2024DELTA: Decomposed Efficient Long-Term Robot Task Planning using Large Language Modelscited by 33
  11. 2024Skill Set Optimization: Reinforcing Language Model Behavior via Transferable Skillscited by 24
  12. 2021Successor Feature Landmarks for Long-Horizon Goal-Conditioned Reinforcement Learningcited by 23
  13. 2023A Review on Machine Theory of Mindcited by 9
  14. 2023HDDL 2.1: Towards Defining a Formalism and a Semantics for Temporal HTN Planningcited by 3

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2024: 4; 2025: 12; 2026: 5.

21 papers.

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By area:

  1. 2025PlanGenLLMs: A Modern Survey of LLM Planning Capabilitiescited by 82
  2. 2025TreeReview: A Dynamic Tree of Questions Framework for Deep and Efficient LLM-based Scientific Peer Reviewcited by 31
  3. 2024A Survey on Large Language Model-Based Social Agents in Game-Theoretic Scenarioscited by 23
  4. 2025The Lighthouse of Language: Enhancing LLM Agents via Critique-Guided Improvementcited by 19
  5. 2026From Storage to Experience: A Survey on the Evolution of LLM Agent Memory Mechanismscited by 19
  6. 2025Large language models for artificial general intelligence (AGI): A survey of foundational principles and approachescited by 18
  7. 2025Evaluating the Goal-Directedness of Large Language Modelscited by 15
  8. 2024LASP: Surveying the State-of-the-Art in Large Language Model-Assisted AI Planningcited by 9
  9. 2025ARIA: Training Language Agents with Intention-Driven Reward Aggregationcited by 9
  10. 2024Who Speaks Next? Multi-party AI Discussion Leveraging the Systematics of Turn-taking in Murder Mystery Gamescited by 7
  11. 2025HARBOR: Exploring Persona Dynamics in Multi-Agent Competitioncited by 6
  12. 2025Cost-Awareness in Tree-Search LLM Planning: A Systematic Studycited by 5
9 more
  1. 2026Think Fast and Slow: Step-Level Cognitive Depth Adaptation for LLM Agentscited by 5
  2. 2025Tru-POMDP: Task Planning Under Uncertainty via Tree of Hypotheses and Open-Ended POMDPscited by 4
  3. 2024Towards a Science Exocortexcited by 3
  4. 2025GraphicBench: A Planning Benchmark for Graphic Design with Language Agentscited by 3
  5. 2025Data-Driven Calibration of Prediction Sets in Large Vision-Language Models Based on Inductive Conformal Predictioncited by 3
  6. 2026LAP: A Language-Aware Planning Model For Procedure Planning In Instructional Videoscited by 1
  7. 2025Intelligent Design 4.0: Paradigm Evolution Toward the Agentic AI Eracited by 0
  8. 2026"Are You Sure?": An Empirical Study of Human Perception Vulnerability in LLM-Driven Agentic Systemscited by 0
  9. 2026PAVE: A Cognitive Architecture for Legitimate Violation in Generative Agent Societiescited by 0

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  3. 2025From Language to Action: A Review of Large Language Models as Autonomous Agents and Tool Users
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  8. 2024A Survey on Large Language Model-Based Game Agents