mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Efficient Hierarchical Implicit Flow Q-learning for Offline Goal-conditioned Reinforcement Learning

arXiv 2604.08960 ↗First posted 10 Apr 2026cs.LGcited by 2

On the map: Offline RL and imitation learning from data → Diffusion and flow policies for offline RL

Abstract (arXiv)

Offline goal-conditioned reinforcement learning (GCRL) is a practical reinforcement learning paradigm that aims to learn goal-conditioned policies from reward-free offline data. Despite recent advances in hierarchical architectures such as HIQL, long-horizon control in offline GCRL remains challenging due to the limited expressiveness of Gaussian policies and the inability of high-level policies to generate effective subgoals. To address these limitations, we propose the goal-conditioned mean flow policy, which introduces an average velocity field into hierarchical policy modeling for offline GCRL. Specifically, the mean flow policy captures complex target distributions for both high-level and low-level policies through a learned average velocity field, enabling efficient action generation via one-step sampling. Furthermore, considering the insufficiency of goal representation, we introduce a LeJEPA loss that repels goal representation embeddings during training, thereby encouraging more discriminative representations and improving generalization. Experimental results show that our method achieves strong performance across both state-based and pixel-based tasks in the OGBench benchmark.

Key facts. Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Diffusion and flow policies for offline RL, one of 13 directions in Offline RL and imitation learning from data. Builds on 39 of its 45 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 10 Apr 2026.

Builds on

39 of 45 references.

Closest ancestors · 7

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025Option-aware Temporally Abstracted Value for Offline Goal-Conditioned Reinforcement Learning19 May
  2. 2025Flow Q-Learning4 Feb
  3. 2024OGBench: Benchmarking Offline Goal-Conditioned RL26 Oct
  4. 2023Efficient Diffusion Policies for Offline Reinforcement Learning31 May
  5. 2023AdaptDiffuser: Diffusion Models as Adaptive Self-evolving Planners3 Feb
  6. 2022Is Conditional Generative Modeling all you need for Decision-Making?28 Nov
  7. 2022Diffusion Policies as an Expressive Policy Class for Offline Reinforcement Learning12 Aug

Other references · 32

  1. 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 20,851
  2. 2020A Simple Framework for Contrastive Learning of Visual Representationscited by 11,979
  3. 2021Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesiscited by 8,185
  4. 2015Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamicscited by 7,005
  5. 2022Flow Matching for Generative Modelingcited by 5,426
  6. 2024Scaling Rectified Flow Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesiscited by 4,094
  7. 2022Flow Straight and Fast: Learning to Generate and Transfer Data with Rectified Flowcited by 3,550
  8. 2023Diffusion Policy: Visuomotor Policy Learning via Action Diffusioncited by 2,730
  9. 2020Offline Reinforcement Learning: Tutorial, Review, and Perspectives on Open Problemscited by 1,873
  10. 2023Consistency Modelscited by 1,778
  11. 2021An Empirical Study of Training Self-Supervised Vision Transformerscited by 1,610
  12. 2021Offline Reinforcement Learning with Implicit Q-Learningcited by 1,245
20 more
  1. 2022Planning with Diffusion for Flexible Behavior Synthesiscited by 1,023
  2. 2022Building Normalizing Flows with Stochastic Interpolantscited by 964
  3. 2021A Minimalist Approach to Offline Reinforcement Learningcited by 882
  4. 2023Open X-Embodiment: Robotic Learning Datasets and RT-X Modelscited by 849
  5. 2019Advantage-Weighted Regression: Simple and Scalable Off-Policy Reinforcement Learningcited by 750
  6. 2021What Matters in Learning from Offline Human Demonstrations for Robot Manipulationcited by 699
  7. 2025Mean Flows for One-step Generative Modelingcited by 524
  8. 2022VIP: Towards Universal Visual Reward and Representation via Value-Implicit Pre-Trainingcited by 384
  9. 2024Flow Matching Guide and Codecited by 291
  10. 2024Simplifying, Stabilizing and Scaling Continuous-Time Consistency Modelscited by 276
  11. 2022Contrastive Learning as Goal-Conditioned Reinforcement Learningcited by 241
  12. 2025LeJEPA: Provable and Scalable Self-Supervised Learning Without the Heuristicscited by 227
  13. 2022Goal-Conditioned Reinforcement Learning: Problems and Solutionscited by 145
  14. 2024Consistency Models Made Easycited by 140
  15. 2023HIQL: Offline Goal-Conditioned RL with Latent States as Actionscited by 133
  16. 2023Optimal Goal-Reaching Reinforcement Learning via Quasimetric Learningcited by 116
  17. 2024Learning Temporal Distances: Contrastive Successor Features Can Provide a Metric Structure for Decision-Makingcited by 53
  18. 2021Landmark-Guided Subgoal Generation in Hierarchical Reinforcement Learningcited by 46
  19. 2019Mapping State Space using Landmarks for Universal Goal Reachingcited by 44
  20. 2024A Single Goal is All You Need: Skills and Exploration Emerge from Contrastive RL without Rewards, Demonstrations, or Subgoalscited by 20

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 2.

2 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026Offline RL with Hierarchical Action Chunking
  2. 2023Provably Efficient Offline Goal-Conditioned Reinforcement Learning with General Function Approximation and Single-Policy Concentrability
  3. 2025Flattening Hierarchies with Policy Bootstrapping
  4. 2026Adaptive Coarse-to-Fine Subgoal Refinement for Long-Horizon Offline Goal-Conditioned Reinforcement Learning
  5. 2026PathBridger: Subgoal Bridges for Offline Goal-Conditioned Reinforcement Learning
  6. 2022How Far I'll Go: Offline Goal-Conditioned Reinforcement Learning via f-Advantage Regression
  7. 2022Hierarchical Planning Through Goal-Conditioned Offline Reinforcement Learning
  8. 2026Diffusion Subgoal Planning for Long-Horizon Offline Goal-Conditioned Reinforcement Learning