mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

CoBA-RL: Capability-Oriented Budget Allocation for Reinforcement Learning in LLMs

arXiv 2602.03048 ↗First posted 3 Feb 2026cs.LG cs.AIcited by 11

On the map: LLM reasoning → Reinforcement learning for reasoning

Abstract (arXiv)

Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Rewards (RLVR) has emerged as a key approach for enhancing LLM reasoning. However, standard frameworks like Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO) typically employ a uniform rollout budget, leading to resource inefficiency. Moreover, existing adaptive methods often rely on instance-level metrics, such as task pass rates, failing to capture the model's dynamic learning state. To address these limitations, we propose CoBA-RL, a reinforcement learning algorithm designed to adaptively allocate rollout budgets based on the model's evolving capability. Specifically, CoBA-RL utilizes a Capability-Oriented Value function to map tasks to their potential training gains and employs a heap-based greedy strategy to efficiently self-calibrate the distribution of computational resources to samples with high training value. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our approach effectively orchestrates the trade-off between exploration and exploitation, delivering consistent generalization improvements across multiple challenging benchmarks. These findings underscore that quantifying sample training value and optimizing budget allocation are pivotal for advancing LLM post-training efficiency.

Key facts. Cited by 11 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Reinforcement learning for reasoning, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 39 of its 46 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 3 Feb 2026.

Builds on

39 of 46 references.

Closest ancestors · 18

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2026Your Group-Relative Advantage Is Biased13 Jan
  2. 2026GDPO: Group reward-Decoupled Normalization Policy Optimization for Multi-reward RL Optimization8 Jan
  3. 2025VADE: Variance-Aware Dynamic Sampling via Online Sample-Level Difficulty Estimation for Multimodal RL24 Nov
  4. 2025AdaCuRL: Adaptive Curriculum Reinforcement Learning with Invalid Sample Mitigation and Historical Revisiting12 Nov
  5. 2025CurES: From Gradient Analysis to Efficient Curriculum Learning for Reasoning LLMs1 Oct
  6. 2025CDE: Curiosity-Driven Exploration for Efficient Reinforcement Learning in Large Language Models11 Sep
  7. 2025Pass@k Training for Adaptively Balancing Exploration and Exploitation of Large Reasoning Models14 Aug
  8. 2025Sample More to Think Less: Group Filtered Policy Optimization for Concise Reasoning13 Aug
  9. 2025Progressive Mastery: Customized Curriculum Learning with Guided Prompting for Mathematical Reasoning4 Jun
  10. 2025The Entropy Mechanism of Reinforcement Learning for Reasoning Language Models28 May
  11. 2025Self-Evolving Curriculum for LLM Reasoning20 May
  12. 2025Learning Like Humans: Advancing LLM Reasoning Capabilities via Adaptive Difficulty Curriculum Learning and Expert-Guided Self-Reformulation13 May
6 more
  1. 2025DUMP: Automated Distribution-Level Curriculum Learning for RL-based LLM Post-training13 Apr
  2. 2025Efficient Reinforcement Finetuning via Adaptive Curriculum Learning7 Apr
  3. 2025DAPO: An Open-Source LLM Reinforcement Learning System at Scale18 Mar
  4. 2025Logic-RL: Unleashing LLM Reasoning with Rule-Based Reinforcement Learning20 Feb
  5. 2024Tulu 3: Pushing Frontiers in Open Language Model Post-Training22 Nov
  6. 2023Let's Verify Step by Step31 May

Other references · 21

  1. 2024DeepSeekMath: Pushing the Limits of Mathematical Reasoning in Open Language Modelscited by 8,851
  2. 2025Qwen3 Technical Reportcited by 8,195
  3. 2025Gemini 2.5: Pushing the Frontier with Advanced Reasoning, Multimodality, Long Context, and Next Generation Agentic Capabilitiescited by 3,655
  4. 2024HybridFlow: A Flexible and Efficient RLHF Frameworkcited by 1,980
  5. 2023SGLang: Efficient Execution of Structured Language Model Programscited by 1,107
  6. 2024OlympiadBench: A Challenging Benchmark for Promoting AGI with Olympiad-Level Bilingual Multimodal Scientific Problemscited by 1,099
  7. 2025Group Sequence Policy Optimizationcited by 788
  8. 2025Kimi K2: Open Agentic Intelligencecited by 523
  9. 2025T1: Advancing Language Model Reasoning through Reinforcement Learning and Inference Scalingcited by 77
  10. 2025Boosting the Generalization and Reasoning of Vision Language Models with Curriculum Reinforcement Learningcited by 71
  11. 2025Parallel-R1: Towards Parallel Thinking via Reinforcement Learningcited by 59
  12. 2025Optimizing Chain-of-Thought Reasoners via Gradient Variance Minimization in Rejection Sampling and RLcited by 23
9 more
  1. 2024Curriculum Learning for Small Code Language Modelscited by 22
  2. 2025Knapsack RL: Unlocking Exploration of LLMs via Optimizing Budget Allocationcited by 21
  3. 2025Learning to Reason via Mixture-of-Thought for Logical Reasoningcited by 20
  4. 2025Preference Curriculum: LLMs Should Always Be Pretrained on Their Preferred Datacited by 16
  5. 2023Instruction Tuning with Human Curriculumcited by 15
  6. 2025Angles Don't Lie: Unlocking Training-Efficient RL Through the Model's Own Signalscited by 13
  7. 2026ROI-Reasoning: Rational Optimization for Inference via Pre-Computation Meta-Cognitioncited by 8
  8. 2023Marketing Budget Allocation with Offline Constrained Deep Reinforcement Learningcited by 3
  9. 2024Multi-Task Combinatorial Bandits for Budget Allocationcited by 2

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 11.

11 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026How to Allocate, How to Learn? Dynamic Rollout Allocation and Advantage Modulation for Policy Optimization
  2. 2025RL-PLUS: Countering Capability Boundary Collapse of LLMs in Reinforcement Learning with Hybrid-policy Optimization
  3. 2025Part I: Tricks or Traps? A Deep Dive into RL for LLM Reasoning
  4. 2026Learning as Reasoning Unfolds: Progressive Rollout Allocation for Efficient Reinforcement Learning
  5. 2025Depth-Breadth Synergy in RLVR: Unlocking LLM Reasoning Gains with Adaptive Exploration
  6. 2026Modularized Reinforcement Learning on LLMs: From MDP Creation to Exploration and Learning
  7. 2026Contextual Rollout Bandits for Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Rewards
  8. 2025Unlocking Reasoning Capabilities in LLMs via Reinforcement Learning Exploration