Frontier Learning: Training LLM Reasoners at the Edge of Capability
On the map: LLM reasoning → Reinforcement learning for reasoning
Abstract (arXiv)
Reinforcement Learning-based post-training of Large Language Models (LLM) has been successfully applied to improve their reasoning capabilities. Existing pipelines primarily finetune LLMs on a fixed pool of problems specified prior to training using the GRPO loss. This is fundamentally limiting, as learning signal arises only when policy rollouts mix successes and failures, causing the useful portion of any fixed pool to quickly become stale as the model improves. To address this, we propose frontier learning, an open-ended post-training approach in which procedural generators are used online to continually produce informative training problems. It treats the generator's task-specific parameters as a search space and uses a regret signal to prioritize and explore frontier difficulty levels in order to focus training at the edge of the model's evolving reasoning capabilities. Across several reasoning tasks and model families, our approach consistently achieves higher relative gains over fixed-pool baselines, demonstrating that effective post-training requires not only selecting useful problems, but continually generating them at the edge of capability.
Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Reinforcement learning for reasoning, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 43 of its 53 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 28 Sep 2026.
Builds on
43 of 53 references.
Closest ancestors · 25
Same direction, newest first
- 2026Question Begets Question: Self-Evolving Curriculum for Reinforcement Fine-Tuning on Competition Mathematics2 Aug
- 2026Train Less, Learn More: Adaptive Efficient Rollout Optimization for Group-Based Reinforcement Learning15 Feb
- 2026Multi-Task GRPO: Reliable LLM Reasoning Across Tasks5 Feb
- 2026Harder Is Better: Boosting Mathematical Reasoning via Difficulty-Aware GRPO and Multi-Aspect Question Reformulation28 Jan
- 2026Group Distributionally Robust Optimization-Driven Reinforcement Learning for LLM Reasoning27 Jan
- 2026Teaching Models to Teach Themselves: Reasoning at the Edge of Learnability26 Jan
- 2026SCALER:Synthetic Scalable Adaptive Learning Environment for Reasoning8 Jan
- 2025AdaCuRL: Adaptive Curriculum Reinforcement Learning with Invalid Sample Mitigation and Historical Revisiting12 Nov
- 2025DARO: Difficulty-Aware Reweighting Policy Optimization10 Oct
- 2025Reinforce-Ada: An Adaptive Sampling Framework under Non-linear RL Objectives6 Oct
- 2025CLPO: Curriculum Learning meets Policy Optimization for LLM Reasoning29 Sep
- 2025Act Only When It Pays: Efficient Reinforcement Learning for LLM Reasoning via Selective Rollouts2 Jun
13 more
- 2025ProRL: Prolonged Reinforcement Learning Expands Reasoning Boundaries in Large Language Models30 May
- 2025SynLogic: Synthesizing Verifiable Reasoning Data at Scale for Learning Logical Reasoning and Beyond26 May
- 2025Self-Evolving Curriculum for LLM Reasoning20 May
- 2025Absolute Zero: Reinforced Self-play Reasoning with Zero Data6 May
- 2025DUMP: Automated Distribution-Level Curriculum Learning for RL-based LLM Post-training13 Apr
- 2025Online Difficulty Filtering for Reasoning Oriented Reinforcement Learning4 Apr
- 2025DAPO: An Open-Source LLM Reinforcement Learning System at Scale18 Mar
- 2025Learning to Reason at the Frontier of Learnability17 Feb
- 2025Kimi k1.5: Scaling Reinforcement Learning with LLMs22 Jan
- 2025REINFORCE++: Stabilizing Critic-Free Policy Optimization with Global Advantage Normalization4 Jan
- 2024Tulu 3: Pushing Frontiers in Open Language Model Post-Training22 Nov
- 2023Direct Preference Optimization: Your Language Model is Secretly a Reward Model29 May
- 2017Proximal Policy Optimization Algorithms20 Jul
Other references · 18
- 2022Training language models to follow instructions with human feedbackcited by 15,971
- 2024The Llama 3 Herd of Modelscited by 14,715
- 2024DeepSeekMath: Pushing the Limits of Mathematical Reasoning in Open Language Modelscited by 9,379
- 2025Qwen3 Technical Reportcited by 8,820
- 2023WizardMath: Empowering Mathematical Reasoning for Large Language Models via Reinforced Evol-Instructcited by 625
- 2025rStar-Math: Small LLMs Can Master Math Reasoning with Self-Evolved Deep Thinkingcited by 313
- 2025R-Zero: Self-Evolving Reasoning LLM from Zero Datacited by 228
- 2024V-STaR: Training Verifiers for Self-Taught Reasonerscited by 217
- 2017Teacher-Student Curriculum Learningcited by 210
- 2025REASONING GYM: Reasoning Environments for Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Rewardscited by 130
- 2025Olmo 3cited by 129
- 2025Enigmata: Scaling Logical Reasoning in Large Language Models with Synthetic Verifiable Puzzlescited by 56
6 more
- 2025Knapsack RL: Unlocking Exploration of LLMs via Optimizing Budget Allocationcited by 22
- 2026SPADE: Self-Play in Adaptive Synthetic Executable Environmentscited by 12
- 2020Mastering Rate based Curriculum Learningcited by 9
- 2026Actor-Curator: Co-adaptive Curriculum Learning via Policy-Improvement Bandits for RL Post-Trainingcited by 8
- 2026AceGRPO: Adaptive Curriculum Enhanced Group Relative Policy Optimization for Autonomous Machine Learning Engineeringcited by 4
- 2026Reasoning Core: A Scalable Procedural Data Generation Suite for Symbolic Pre-training and Post-Trainingcited by 2
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