Firefly: Illuminating Large-Scale Verified Tool-Call Data Generation from Real APIs
On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Tool learning and function calling
Abstract (arXiv)
Training tool-calling agents requires large-scale trajectory data with verifiable labels, yet existing approaches either synthesize environments that diverge from real API behavior or generate tasks without ground-truth outcomes for verification. We present FireFly, a pipeline for generating verified tool-call data from real-world MCP servers. Our key insight is to invert the standard synthesis pipeline: rather than generating tasks and hoping they are solvable, we first let a strong LLM explore real APIs along graph-guided DAG structures, then synthesize tasks backward from observed outcomes, guaranteeing label correctness by construction. To handle the scale of real-world tool spaces (~1,000 tools), we build a pairwise tool graph and sample sub-DAGs to focus exploration on semantically coherent workflows. To address environment drift in live APIs, we construct a retrieval-augmented simulator that caches all exploration results and replays them during training and evaluation, enabling fully offline and reproducible RL. Applying this pipeline yields 5,144 verified tasks spanning 240 servers and 993 tools. A 4B-parameter model trained with GRPO on FireFly matches Claude Sonnet 4.6 on our held-out test set and shows improvements on multiple tool-calling benchmarks including Tau2-Bench, MCPMark, and MCP-Atlas.
Key facts. Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Tool learning and function calling, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 13 of its 25 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 17 May 2026.
Builds on
13 of 25 references.
Closest ancestors · 4
Same direction, newest first
- 2025MCP-Flow: Facilitating LLM Agents to Master Real-World, Diverse and Scaling MCP Tools28 Oct
- 2025TOUCAN: Synthesizing 1.5M Tool-Agentic Data from Real-World MCP Environments1 Oct
- 2023ToolAlpaca: Generalized Tool Learning for Language Models with 3000 Simulated Cases8 Jun
- 2023API-Bank: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Tool-Augmented LLMs14 Apr
Other references · 9
- 2021Evaluating Large Language Models Trained on Codecited by 8,320
- 2022Self-Consistency Improves Chain of Thought Reasoning in Language Modelscited by 5,708
- 2023Code Llama: Open Foundation Models for Codecited by 2,139
- 2024τ-bench: A Benchmark for Tool-Agent-User Interaction in Real-World Domainscited by 1,402
- 2025τ2-Bench: Evaluating Conversational Agents in a Dual-Control Environmentcited by 627
- 2023WizardMath: Empowering Mathematical Reasoning for Large Language Models via Reinforced Evol-Instructcited by 625
- 2024A Survey on Knowledge Distillation of Large Language Modelscited by 284
- 2025APIGen-MT: Agentic Pipeline for Multi-Turn Data Generation via Simulated Agent-Human Interplaycited by 167
- 2023Machine Learning for Synthetic Data Generation: A Reviewcited by 120
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2026: 2.
2 papers.
Similar, not cited
Close in wording, no citation either way
- 2026Trajectory2Task: Training Robust Tool-Calling Agents with Synthesized Yet Verifiable Data for Complex User Intents
- 2026Multi-Step Tool-Calling over Korean Open Public APIs: A Benchmark and a Data-Synthesis Recipe
- 2026ToolWeave: Structured Synthesis of Complex Multi-Turn Tool-Calling Dialogues
- 2026OpaqueToolsBench: Learning Nuances of Tool Behavior Through Interaction
- 2025In-N-Out: A Parameter-Level API Graph Dataset for Tool Agents
- 2026When Simulation Lies: A Sim-to-Real Benchmark and Domain-Randomized RL Recipe for Tool-Use Agents
- 2026SynAE: A Framework for Measuring the Quality of Synthetic Data for Tool-Calling Agent Evaluations
- 2026ToolRobustBench: Stage-Wise Perturbation Evaluation and Failure Diagnosis for Tool-Calling Agents