mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

One Task, Many Interfaces: Simple Cross-Interface Consistency Training Improves LLM Agent Robustness

arXiv 2610.20576 ↗First posted 14 Oct 2026cs.LG cs.AI cs.CLcited by 0

On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Reinforcement learning for LLM agents

Abstract (arXiv)

Post-training binds the competence of an LLM agent to the interface it was trained on. Semantics-preserving perturbations of that interface, such as renaming an action or changing the notation, leave the underlying task unchanged yet make the agent worse at it. Scoring each sample independently means interface randomization only broadens this dependence from a single interface to the training interface distribution, so out-of-distribution perturbations still degrade the agent. We propose Cross-Interface Policy Regularization (CIPR), a self-supervised objective that replaces action names with uninformative identifiers and presents each training sample under two interfaces in which equivalent actions are identified by construction. CIPR penalizes the KL divergence between the action distributions induced under the two interfaces, so the policy behaves consistently across them. We evaluate CIPR in both supervised and reinforcement-learning post-training, where it improves robustness. On agentic function calling, held-out interface perturbations reduce the accuracy of a post-trained agent by nearly 25%, and CIPR recovers 10.5% while leaving accuracy on the unchanged interface intact.

Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Reinforcement learning for LLM agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 31 of its 41 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 14 Oct 2026.

Builds on

31 of 41 references.

Closest ancestors · 1

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025ToolRL: Reward is All Tool Learning Needs16 Apr

Other references · 30

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  2. 2020Shortcut Learning in Deep Neural Networkscited by 1,969
  3. 2022WebShop: Towards Scalable Real-World Web Interaction with Grounded Language Agentscited by 1,251
  4. 2019Unsupervised Data Augmentation for Consistency Trainingcited by 1,060
  5. 2025τ2-Bench: Evaluating Conversational Agents in a Dual-Control Environmentcited by 627
  6. 2025Kimi K2: Open Agentic Intelligencecited by 567
  7. 2024GSM-Symbolic: Understanding the Limitations of Mathematical Reasoning in Large Language Modelscited by 550
  8. 2023AgentTuning: Enabling Generalized Agent Abilities for LLMscited by 338
  9. 2024ToolACE: Winning the Points of LLM Function Callingcited by 216
  10. 2023Grounding Large Language Models in Interactive Environments with Online Reinforcement Learningcited by 195
  11. 2024xLAM: A Family of Large Action Models to Empower AI Agent Systemscited by 111
  12. 2024Agent-FLAN: Designing Data and Methods of Effective Agent Tuning for Large Language Modelscited by 100
18 more
  1. 2024RoTBench: A Multi-Level Benchmark for Evaluating the Robustness of Large Language Models in Tool Learningcited by 47
  2. 2024TOOLVERIFIER: Generalization to New Tools via Self-Verificationcited by 24
  3. 2025Procedural Environment Generation for Tool-Use Agentscited by 24
  4. 2025On the Robustness of Agentic Function Callingcited by 19
  5. 2025Tool Preferences in Agentic LLMs are Unreliablecited by 18
  6. 2025Generalizable End-to-End Tool-Use RL with Synthetic CodeGymcited by 17
  7. 2024Learning Evolving Tools for Large Language Modelscited by 16
  8. 2025GenTool: Enhancing Tool Generalization in Language Models through Zero-to-One and Weak-to-Strong Simulationcited by 10
  9. 2024The Group Robustness is in the Details: Revisiting Finetuning under Spurious Correlationscited by 6
  10. 2026What Do Agents Learn from Trajectory-SFT: Semantics or Interfaces?cited by 6
  11. 2026When Simulation Lies: A Sim-to-Real Benchmark and Domain-Randomized RL Recipe for Tool-Use Agentscited by 6
  12. 2026Learning to Act under Noise: Enhancing Agent Robustness via Noisy Environmentscited by 6
  13. 2023Consistency Regularization for Domain Generalization with Logit Attribution Matchingcited by 4
  14. 2026Can Agents Generalize to the Open World? Unveiling the Fragility of Static Training in Tool Usecited by 4
  15. 2025Do regularization methods for shortcut mitigation work as intended?cited by 3
  16. 2025Beyond Syntax: Action Semantics Learning for App Agentscited by 3
  17. 2026Do LLMs Know Tool Irrelevance? Demystifying Structural Alignment Bias in Tool Invocationscited by 3
  18. 2026Improving Cross-Format Robustness in Language Models with Multi-Format Trainingcited by 2

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