# Relational Task Generation Language: A Declarative Specification Framework for Relational Deep Learning

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.01292 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.01292/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 23 of its 42 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 1 Sep 2026.

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

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.04805/) (2018)
- [Inductive Representation Learning on Large Graphs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.02216/) (2017)
- [Graph Neural Networks: A Review of Methods and Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.08434/) (2018)
- [Revisiting Deep Learning Models for Tabular Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.11959/) (2021)
- [TabNet: Attentive Interpretable Tabular Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.07442/) (2019)
- [Heterogeneous Graph Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.01332/) (2020)
- [Deep Neural Networks and Tabular Data: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.01889/) (2021)
- [RelBench: A Benchmark for Deep Learning on Relational Databases](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.20060/) (2024)
- [RelGNN: Composite Message Passing for Relational Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.06784/) (2025)
- [Griffin: Towards a Graph-Centric Relational Database Foundation Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.05568/) (2025)
- [Relational Transformer: Toward Zero-Shot Foundation Models for Relational Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.06377/) (2025)
- [Relational Deep Learning: Challenges, Foundations and Next-Generation Architectures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.16654/) (2025)
- [RelBench v2: A Large-Scale Benchmark and Repository for Relational Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.12606/) (2026)
- [PluRel: Synthetic Data unlocks Scaling Laws for Relational Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.04029/) (2026)
- [KumoRFM-2: Scaling Foundation Models for Relational Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.12596/) (2026)
- [Transformers Meet Relational Databases](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.05218/) (2024)
- [Boosting Relational Deep Learning with Pretrained Tabular Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.04934/) (2025)
- [REDELEX: A Framework for Relational Deep Learning Exploration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.22199/) (2025)
- [Predictive Query Language: A Domain-Specific Language for Predictive Modeling on Relational Databases](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.09572/) (2026)
- [sql4ml A declarative end-to-end workflow for machine learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.12415/) (2019)
- [Task-Agnostic Contrastive Pretraining for Relational Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.22530/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Relational Deep Learning (RDL) has become a powerful paradigm for learning from multi-tabular data. However, manually defining RDL prediction tasks is a laborious process that frequently results in data leakage. To address this issue, we introduce Relational Task Generation Language (RTGL) - an open-source declarative language that streamlines RDL task formulation by abstracting away low-level SQL details. We showcase RTGL by reconstructing existing RDL benchmark tasks and uncovering their inconsistencies stemming from manually crafted SQL definitions of RDL prediction targets, thereby underscoring the value of a dedicated declarative language. In addition, we demonstrate the practical utility of RTGL by designing various new tasks with diverse forms and target types. Our experiments confirm the robustness and usability of RTGL, as well as its seamless integration with the existing RDL frameworks, making it widely accessible to the community.