# ATOM: Instantiating Budget-Controllable Multi-Agent Collaboration via Nucleus-Electron Hierarchy

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.26178 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.26178/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in General LLM agent frameworks and benchmarks, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use.
- Builds on 26 of its 38 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 25 May 2026.

## Placed in

- LLM agents and tool use / [General LLM agent frameworks and benchmarks](https://mlsanity.com/agents/general-llm-agent-frameworks-and-benchmarks/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 26 of 26)

- [Training Verifiers to Solve Math Word Problems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.14168/) (2021)
- [Measuring Massive Multitask Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.03300/) (2020)
- [Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.03442/) (2023)
- [Improving Factuality and Reasoning in Language Models through Multiagent Debate](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.14325/) (2023)
- [MiniLM: Deep Self-Attention Distillation for Task-Agnostic Compression of Pre-Trained Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.10957/) (2020)
- [Are NLP Models really able to Solve Simple Math Word Problems?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.07191/) (2021)
- [Program Induction by Rationale Generation : Learning to Solve and Explain Algebraic Word Problems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.04146/) (2017)
- [Solving General Arithmetic Word Problems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.01413/) (2016)
- [On the Planning Abilities of Large Language Models : A Critical Investigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.15771/) (2023)
- [Self-collaboration Code Generation via ChatGPT](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.07590/) (2023)
- [Data Interpreter: An LLM Agent For Data Science](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.18679/) (2024)
- [AutoAgents: A Framework for Automatic Agent Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.17288/) (2023)
- [Large Language Model-Based Agents for Software Engineering: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.02977/) (2024)
- [MapCoder: Multi-Agent Code Generation for Competitive Problem Solving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.11403/) (2024)
- [Debug like a Human: A Large Language Model Debugger via Verifying Runtime Execution Step-by-step](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.16906/) (2024)
- [Multi-Agent Design: Optimizing Agents with Better Prompts and Topologies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.02533/) (2025)
- [A Survey of Frontiers in LLM Reasoning: Inference Scaling, Learning to Reason, and Agentic Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.09037/) (2025)
- [Scalable Multi-Robot Collaboration with Large Language Models: Centralized or Decentralized Systems?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.15943/) (2023)
- [Assemble Your Crew: Automatic Multi-agent Communication Topology Design via Autoregressive Graph Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.18224/) (2025)
- [Lyfe Agents: Generative agents for low-cost real-time social interactions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.02172/) (2023)
- [A Survey of Large Language Model Agents for Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.19213/) (2025)
- [WaitGPT: Monitoring and Steering Conversational LLM Agent in Data Analysis with On-the-Fly Code Visualization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.01703/) (2024)
- [Cost-Effective Communication: An Auction-based Method for Language Agent Interaction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.13193/) (2025)
- [AgentInit: Initializing LLM-based Multi-Agent Systems via Diversity and Expertise Orchestration for Effective and Efficient Collaboration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.19236/) (2025)
- [Video-QTR: Query-Driven Temporal Reasoning Framework for Lightweight Video Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.09354/) (2025)
- [SortingHat: Redefining Operating Systems Education with a Tailored Digital Teaching Assistant](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.00015/) (2026)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Engineering Reliable Coding Agents: Evaluating and Operating the System Around the Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.13867/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Large Language Model (LLM)-based multi-agent systems rely on optimized collaboration topologies to balance performance and communication costs. However, current methods struggle with the inherent stability-extensibility trade-off and often misalign computational budgets with query difficulty. We propose textscATOM, an adaptive framework that generates budget-controllable collaboration graphs via a novel task-driven reinforcement learning paradigm. Inspired by atomic structures, textscATOM employs a nucleus-electron hierarchy: it maintains a stable, offline-learned collaboration backbone (the nucleus) while dynamically activating query-conditioned agents (electrons) during inference. Crucially, a complexity-aware budgeting strategy aligns resource consumption with task demands by estimating query difficulty to strictly regulate electron instantiation. Extensive experiments across six diverse benchmarks demonstrate that textscATOM achieves state-of-the-art performance while improving token efficiency by up to 30% compared to strong baselines.