# Large-Scale Terminal Agentic Trajectory Generation from Dockerized Environments

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.01244 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.01244/

## Key facts

- Cited by 33 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Software engineering coding agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use.
- Builds on 23 of its 35 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 1 Feb 2026.

## Placed in

- LLM agents and tool use / [Software engineering coding agents](https://mlsanity.com/agents/software-engineering-coding-agents/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 23 of 23)

- [Evaluating Large Language Models Trained on Code](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.03374/) (2021)
- [Self-Refine: Iterative Refinement with Self-Feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.17651/) (2023)
- [SWE-bench: Can Language Models Resolve Real-World GitHub Issues?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.06770/) (2023)
- [WebArena: A Realistic Web Environment for Building Autonomous Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.13854/) (2023)
- [Scaling LLM Test-Time Compute Optimally can be More Effective than Scaling Model Parameters](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.03314/) (2024)
- [Megatron-LM: Training Multi-Billion Parameter Language Models Using Model Parallelism](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.08053/) (2019)
- [Challenging BIG-Bench Tasks and Whether Chain-of-Thought Can Solve Them](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.09261/) (2022)
- [SWE-agent: Agent-Computer Interfaces Enable Automated Software Engineering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.15793/) (2024)
- [τ-bench: A Benchmark for Tool-Agent-User Interaction in Real-World Domains](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.12045/) (2024)
- [OpenHands: An Open Platform for AI Software Developers as Generalist Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.16741/) (2024)
- [DeepSeek-V3.2: Pushing the Frontier of Open Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.02556/) (2025)
- [SFT Memorizes, RL Generalizes: A Comparative Study of Foundation Model Post-training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.17161/) (2025)
- [Beyond the 80/20 Rule: High-Entropy Minority Tokens Drive Effective Reinforcement Learning for LLM Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.01939/) (2025)
- [InCoder: A Generative Model for Code Infilling and Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.05999/) (2022)
- [Training Software Engineering Agents and Verifiers with SWE-Gym](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.21139/) (2024)
- [SWE-smith: Scaling Data for Software Engineering Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.21798/) (2025)
- [Multi-SWE-bench: A Multilingual Benchmark for Issue Resolving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.02605/) (2025)
- [SWE-rebench: An Automated Pipeline for Task Collection and Decontaminated Evaluation of Software Engineering Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.20411/) (2025)
- [A Comparative Study on Reasoning Patterns of OpenAI's o1 Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.13639/) (2024)
- [Scaling Test-time Compute for LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.12928/) (2025)
- [SWE-Mirror: Scaling Issue-Resolving Datasets by Mirroring Issues Across Repositories](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.08724/) (2025)
- [BugPilot: Complex Bug Generation for Efficient Learning of SWE Skills](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.19898/) (2025)
- [Nex-N1: Agentic Models Trained via a Unified Ecosystem for Large-Scale Environment Construction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.04987/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 33)

- [Toward Scalable Terminal Task Synthesis via Skill Graphs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.25727/) (2026)
- [Terminal-World: Scaling Terminal-Agent Environments via Agent Skills](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.20876/) (2026)
- [Recursive Synthesis for Long-Horizon Terminal Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.05466/) (2026)
- [A Self-Evolving Framework for Efficient Terminal Agents via Observational Context Compression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.19572/) (2026)
- [CLI-Universe: Towards Verifiable Task Synthesis Engine for Terminal Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.22883/) (2026)
- [SETA: Scaling Environments for Terminal Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.10891/) (2026)
- [TerminalWorld: Benchmarking Agents on Real-World Terminal Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.22535/) (2026)
- [What Makes Interaction Trajectories Effective for Training Terminal Agents?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.03461/) (2026)
- [ModularRSI: Modular and Generalizable Recursive Harness Self-Improvement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.14857/) (2026)
- [LiteCoder-Terminal: Scaling Long-Horizon Terminal Environments for Learning Language Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.29559/) (2026)
- [CalibForge: Adversarial Solver Calibration for Scaling Learnable Terminal Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.06352/) (2026)
- [Terminal-Universe: Turning Agent Trajectories into Scalable Terminal Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.04148/) (2026)
- [NexForge: Scaling Agent Capabilities through Requirement-Driven Task Synthesis for LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.14186/) (2026)
- [T1: Terminal Agent Reinforcement Learning for Long-Horizon Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.11042/) (2026)
- [CodeScaler: Scaling Code LLM Training and Test-Time Inference via Reward Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.17684/) (2026)
- [HiRAS: A Hierarchical Multi-Agent Framework for Paper-to-Code Generation and Execution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.17745/) (2026)
- [Meta-Task: Turning Terminal Task Synthesis into a Terminal Task for Scalable Agent Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.27929/) (2026)
- [Envs-FORGE: Frontier-Optimized Reward-Grounded Environment Synthesis for Agent RL](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.14312/) (2026)
- [Inside the Unfair Judge: A Mechanistic Interpretability Account of LLM-as-Judge Bias](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.11871/) (2026)
- [OctoLong: Mid-Training On Cross-Repository Code Contexts Enhances Long-Context Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.05141/) (2026)
- [Learning Generalizable Behaviors for Terminal Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.22631/) (2026)
- [Environment Evolution for Terminal Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.04128/) (2026)
- [Terminal Agents: A Survey of AI Agents in Command-Line Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.20485/) (2026)
- [Binocular Gaze Estimation with Single Camera and Single Light Source](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.05473/) (2026)
- [GTA: Graph Theory Agent and Benchmark for Algorithmic Graph Reasoning with LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.12265/) (2026)
- [SkillGym: Internalizing Human Skills into LLMs for Real-World Problem Solving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.27717/) (2026)
- [Can Terminal Agents Trust Their Own Verification? Diagnosing and Improving Self-Verification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.38812/) (2026)
- [GraphForge: Training Working Agents with Graph-Anchored Workspace Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.38923/) (2026)
- [Selecting Long-Horizon Trajectories for Reliable and Efficient Terminal-Agent Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.05831/) (2026)
- [Scaling Agentic Data for Long-Horizon Terminal Intelligence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.13166/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Training agentic models for terminal-based tasks critically depends on high-quality terminal trajectories that capture realistic long-horizon interactions across diverse domains. However, constructing such data at scale remains challenging due to two key requirements: textbfExecutability, since each instance requires a suitable and often distinct Docker environment; and textbfVerifiability, because heterogeneous task outputs preclude unified, standardized verification. To address these challenges, we propose TerminalTraj, a scalable pipeline that (i) filters high-quality repositories to construct Dockerized execution environments, (ii) generates Docker-aligned task instances, and (iii) synthesizes agent trajectories with executable validation code. Using TerminalTraj, we curate 32K Docker images and generate 50,733 verified terminal trajectories across eight domains. Models trained on this data with the Qwen2.5-Coder backbone achieve consistent performance improvements on TerminalBench (TB), with gains of up to 20% on TB~1.0 and 10% on TB~2.0 over their respective backbones. Notably, TerminalTraj-32B achieves strong performance among models with fewer than 100B parameters, reaching 35.30% on TB~1.0 and 22.00% on TB~2.0, and demonstrates improved test-time scaling behavior. All code and data are available at https://github.com/Wusiwei0410/TerminalTraj.
