mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

AgentGym-RL: Training LLM Agents for Long-Horizon Decision Making through Multi-Turn Reinforcement Learning

arXiv 2509.08755 ↗First posted 10 Sep 2025cs.LG cs.AI cs.CLcited by 72

On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Reinforcement learning for LLM agents

Abstract (arXiv)

Developing autonomous LLM agents capable of making a series of intelligent decisions to solve complex, real-world tasks is a fast-evolving frontier. Like human cognitive development, agents are expected to acquire knowledge and skills through exploration and interaction with the environment. Despite advances, the community still lacks a unified, interactive reinforcement learning (RL) framework that can effectively train such agents from scratch -- without relying on supervised fine-tuning (SFT) -- across diverse and realistic environments. To bridge this gap, we introduce AgentGym-RL, a new framework to train LLM agents for multi-turn interactive decision-making through RL. The framework features a modular and decoupled architecture, ensuring high flexibility and extensibility. It encompasses a wide variety of real-world scenarios, and supports mainstream RL algorithms. Furthermore, we propose ScalingInter-RL, a training approach designed for exploration-exploitation balance and stable RL optimization. In early stages, it emphasizes exploitation by restricting the number of interactions, and gradually shifts towards exploration with larger horizons to encourage diverse problem-solving strategies. In this way, the agent develops more diverse behaviors and is less prone to collapse under long horizons. We perform extensive experiments to validate the stability and effectiveness of both the AgentGym-RL framework and the ScalingInter-RL approach. Our agents match or surpass commercial models on 27 tasks across diverse environments. We offer key insights and will open-source the complete AgentGym-RL framework -- including code and datasets -- to empower the research community in developing the next generation of intelligent agents.

Key facts. Cited by 72 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Reinforcement learning for LLM agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 70 of its 94 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 10 Sep 2025.

Builds on

70 of 94 references.

Closest ancestors · 3

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2024ArCHer: Training Language Model Agents via Hierarchical Multi-Turn RL29 Feb
  2. 2023Reflexion: Language Agents with Verbal Reinforcement Learning20 Mar
  3. 2022MineDojo: Building Open-Ended Embodied Agents with Internet-Scale Knowledge17 Jun

Other references · 67

  1. 2023GPT-4 Technical Reportcited by 18,396
  2. 2022Training language models to follow instructions with human feedbackcited by 15,971
  3. 2017Proximal Policy Optimization Algorithmscited by 15,215
  4. 2024DeepSeekMath: Pushing the Limits of Mathematical Reasoning in Open Language Modelscited by 9,379
  5. 2025Qwen3 Technical Reportcited by 8,820
  6. 2022ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Modelscited by 8,695
  7. 2023Direct Preference Optimization: Your Language Model is Secretly a Reward Modelcited by 8,065
  8. 2025DeepSeek-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in LLMs via Reinforcement Learningcited by 6,330
  9. 2022Self-Consistency Improves Chain of Thought Reasoning in Language Modelscited by 5,708
  10. 2024GPT-4o System Cardcited by 4,588
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  1. 2017TriviaQA: A Large Scale Distantly Supervised Challenge Dataset for Reading Comprehensioncited by 2,955
  2. 2015Trust Region Policy Optimizationcited by 2,580
  3. 2024HybridFlow: A Flexible and Efficient RLHF Frameworkcited by 2,057
  4. 2023WebArena: A Realistic Web Environment for Building Autonomous Agentscited by 2,006
  5. 2024Scaling LLM Test-Time Compute Optimally can be More Effective than Scaling Model Parameterscited by 1,986
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  7. 2025Search-R1: Training LLMs to Reason and Leverage Search Engines with Reinforcement Learningcited by 1,444
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  10. 2022WebShop: Towards Scalable Real-World Web Interaction with Grounded Language Agentscited by 1,251
  11. 2023Mind2Web: Towards a Generalist Agent for the Webcited by 1,242
  12. 2020ALFWorld: Aligning Text and Embodied Environments for Interactive Learningcited by 1,205
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  14. 2023Encouraging Divergent Thinking in Large Language Models through Multi-Agent Debatecited by 1,011
  15. 2021MuSiQue: Multihop Questions via Single-hop Question Compositioncited by 916
  16. 2023Instruction Tuning with GPT-4cited by 686
  17. 2025BrowseComp: A Simple Yet Challenging Benchmark for Browsing Agentscited by 647
  18. 2024Training Language Models to Self-Correct via Reinforcement Learningcited by 426
  19. 2023AgentTuning: Enabling Generalized Agent Abilities for LLMscited by 338
  20. 2023Multi-Agent Collaboration: Harnessing the Power of Intelligent LLM Agentscited by 333
  21. 2022ScienceWorld: Is your Agent Smarter than a 5th Grader?cited by 327
  22. 2023Statistical Rejection Sampling Improves Preference Optimizationcited by 323
  23. 2025PaperBench: Evaluating AI's Ability to Replicate AI Researchcited by 321
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  29. 2024When Can LLMs Actually Correct Their Own Mistakes? A Critical Survey of Self-Correction of LLMscited by 240
  30. 2024ReFT: Reasoning with Reinforced Fine-Tuningcited by 239
  31. 2023Secrets of RLHF in Large Language Models Part I: PPOcited by 229
  32. 2023Self-Evaluation Guided Beam Search for Reasoningcited by 196
  33. 2023AdaPlanner: Adaptive Planning from Feedback with Language Modelscited by 196
  34. 2024More Agents Is All You Needcited by 180
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  37. 2024AgentGym: Evolving Large Language Model-based Agents across Diverse Environmentscited by 120
  38. 2024Agent-FLAN: Designing Data and Methods of Effective Agent Tuning for Large Language Modelscited by 100

50 most cited of 67 All 67 (JSON)

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Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2025: 14; 2026: 58.

72 papers.

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  1. 2026Skill-SD: Skill-Conditioned Self-Distillation for Multi-turn LLM Agentscited by 90
  2. 2025DeepAgent: A General Reasoning Agent with Scalable Toolsetscited by 71
  3. 2025ToolOrchestra: Elevating Intelligence via Efficient Model and Tool Orchestrationcited by 47
  4. 2026A Survey of Agent Memory in the Second Half: Towards Self-Evolving and Long-Horizon Agentscited by 44
  5. 2025Efficient Multi-turn RL for GUI Agents via Decoupled Training and Adaptive Data Curationcited by 26
  6. 2026SkillGrad: Optimizing Agent Skills Like Gradient Descentcited by 26
  7. 2026The Long-Horizon Task Mirage? Diagnosing Where and Why Agentic Systems Breakcited by 25
  8. 2026Why Reasoning Fails to Plan: A Planning-Centric Analysis of Long-Horizon Decision Making in LLM Agentscited by 23
  9. 2025A Comprehensive Survey on Reinforcement Learning-based Agentic Search: Foundations, Roles, Optimizations, Evaluations, and Applicationscited by 22
  10. 2025DeepTravel: An End-to-End Agentic Reinforcement Learning Framework for Autonomous Travel Planning Agentscited by 17
  11. 2025Scaling Agentic Reinforcement Learning for Tool-Integrated Reasoning in VLMscited by 17
  12. 2025AutoForge: Automated Environment Synthesis for Agentic Reinforcement Learningcited by 17
38 more
  1. 2026TRACE: Turn-level Reward Assignment via Credit Estimation for Long-Horizon Agentscited by 16
  2. 2026SciAgentGym: Benchmarking Multi-Step Scientific Tool-use in LLM Agentscited by 15
  3. 2026ARLArena: A Unified Framework for Stable Agentic Reinforcement Learningcited by 13
  4. 2026Adaptive Milestone Reward for GUI Agentscited by 12
  5. 2026AgentForesight: Online Auditing for Early Failure Prediction in Multi-Agent Systemscited by 11
  6. 2026TRIP-Bench: A Benchmark for Long-Horizon Interactive Agents in Real-World Scenarioscited by 10
  7. 2026AndroTMem: From Interaction Trajectories to Anchored Memory in Long-Horizon GUI Agentscited by 10
  8. 2026HiMAC: Hierarchical Macro-Micro Learning for Long-Horizon LLM Agentscited by 9
  9. 2026OpenNovelty: An LLM-powered Agentic System for Verifiable Scholarly Novelty Assessmentcited by 8
  10. 2026WebAnchor: Anchoring Agent Planning to Stabilize Long-Horizon Web Reasoningcited by 8
  11. 2026No More Stale Feedback: Co-Evolving Critics for Open-World Agent Learningcited by 8
  12. 2026Budget-Constrained Agentic Large Language Models: Intention-Based Planning for Costly Tool Usecited by 8
  13. 2026Agentic Environment Engineering for Large Language Models: A Survey of Environment Modeling, Synthesis, Evaluation, and Applicationcited by 8
  14. 2025SAGE: Training Smart Any-Horizon Agents for Long Video Reasoning with Reinforcement Learningcited by 6
  15. 2025FoldAct: Efficient and Stable Context Folding for Long-Horizon Search Agentscited by 6
  16. 2026Paying Less Generalization Tax: A Cross-Domain Generalization Study of RL Training for LLM Agentscited by 6
  17. 2026SeeUPO: Sequence-Level Agentic-RL with Convergence Guaranteescited by 6
  18. 2026On Training Large Language Models for Long-Horizon Tasks: An Empirical Study of Horizon Lengthcited by 6
  19. 2025Revisiting Long-context Modeling from Context Denoising Perspectivecited by 5
  20. 2025Graph-Enhanced Policy Optimization in LLM Agent Trainingcited by 5
  21. 2026Agent-Omit: Adaptive Context Omission for Efficient LLM Agentscited by 5
  22. 2026LongNav-R1: Horizon-Adaptive Multi-Turn RL for Long-Horizon VLA Navigationcited by 5
  23. 2026State Contamination in Memory-Augmented LLM Agentscited by 5
  24. 2026SkillRise: Agentic Reinforcement Learning for Cross-Task Skill Evolutioncited by 5
  25. 2026MEDVISTAGYM: A Scalable Training Environment for Thinking with Medical Images via Tool-Integrated Reinforcement Learningcited by 4
  26. 2026KLong: Training LLM Agent for Extremely Long-horizon Taskscited by 4
  27. 2026Can RL Improve Generalization of LLM Agents? An Empirical Studycited by 4
  28. 2026Ask Only When Needed: Proactive Retrieval from Memory and Skills for Experience-Driven Lifelong Agentscited by 4
  29. 2026StraTA: Incentivizing Agentic Reinforcement Learning with Strategic Trajectory Abstractioncited by 4
  30. 2026Weblica: Scalable and Reproducible Training Environments for Visual Web Agentscited by 4
  31. 2026ICRL: Learning to Internalize Self-Critique with Reinforcement Learningcited by 4
  32. 2026Agentic-DPO: From Imitation to Agentic Policy Optimization on Expert Trajectoriescited by 4
  33. 2026LEGO-RL: Harness-Native Reinforcement Learning for Coding Agentscited by 4
  34. 2026ProAct: Agentic Lookahead in Interactive Environmentscited by 3
  35. 2026Rewarding Beliefs, Not Actions: Consistency-Guided Credit Assignment for Long-Horizon Agentscited by 3
  36. 2026ResidencyRL: Reinforcement Learning in Simulated Clinical Environmentscited by 3
  37. 2025Training Task Reasoning LLM Agents for Multi-turn Task Planning via Single-turn Reinforcement Learningcited by 2
  38. 2026User-Oriented Multi-Turn Dialogue Generation with Tool Use at scalecited by 2

50 most cited of 72 All 72 (JSON)

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  3. 2025The Landscape of Agentic Reinforcement Learning for LLMs: A Survey
  4. 2024A Survey On Enhancing Reinforcement Learning in Complex Environments: Insights from Human and LLM Feedback
  5. 2026Hybrid LLM-Augmented Reinforcement Learning Agents for Complex Sequential Decision Tasks
  6. 2025RAGEN: Understanding Self-Evolution in LLM Agents via Multi-Turn Reinforcement Learning
  7. 2026Hierarchical Control in Multi-Agent Games: LLM-based Planning and RL Execution
  8. 2026Dr. MAS: Stable Reinforcement Learning for Multi-Agent LLM Systems