# Mapping Smarter, Not Harder: A Test-Time Reinforcement Learning Agent That Improves Without Labels or Model Updates

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.14900 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.14900/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Reasoning for agents, planning and code, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning.
- Builds on 6 of its 11 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 16 Oct 2025.

## Placed in

- LLM reasoning / [Reasoning for agents, planning and code](https://mlsanity.com/lr/reasoning-for-agents-planning-and-code/)
- LLM agents and tool use / [Web, search, and research agents](https://mlsanity.com/agents/web-search-and-research-agents/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [Self-Consistency Improves Chain of Thought Reasoning in Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.11171/) (2022)
- [Reflexion: Language Agents with Verbal Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.11366/) (2023)
- [Search-R1: Training LLMs to Reason and Leverage Search Engines with Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.09516/) (2025)
- [Schema Matching with Large Language Models: an Experimental Study](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.11852/) (2024)
- [ReMatch: Retrieval Enhanced Schema Matching with LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.01567/) (2024)
- [Matchmaker: Self-Improving Large Language Model Programs for Schema Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.24105/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The Enterprise Intelligence Platform must integrate logs from numerous third-party vendors in order to perform various downstream tasks. However, vendor documentation is often unavailable at test time. It is either misplaced, mismatched, poorly formatted, or incomplete, which makes schema mapping challenging. We introduce a reinforcement learning agent that can self-improve without labeled examples or model weight updates. During inference, the agent: 1) Identifies ambiguous field-mapping attempts. 2) Generates targeted web-search queries to gather external evidence. 3) Applies a confidence-based reward to iteratively refine its mappings. To demonstrate this concept, we converted Microsoft Defender for Endpoint logs into a common schema. Our method increased mapping accuracy from 56.4%(LLM-only) to 72.73%(RAG) to 93.94% over 100 iterations using GPT-4o. At the same time, it reduced the number of low-confidence mappings requiring expert review by 85%. This new approach provides an evidence-driven, transparent method for solving future industry problems, paving the way for more robust, accountable, scalable, efficient, flexible, adaptable, and collaborative solutions.