SARL rewards reasoning topology to improve label-free RL, outperforming baselines with gains up to 44.7% on math and 34.6% on open-ended tasks while maintaining more stable training.
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TTRL: Test-Time Reinforcement Learning
Canonical reference. 71% of citing Pith papers cite this work as background.
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abstract
This paper investigates Reinforcement Learning (RL) on data without explicit labels for reasoning tasks in Large Language Models (LLMs). The core challenge of the problem is reward estimation during inference while not having access to ground-truth information. While this setting appears elusive, we find that common practices in Test-Time Scaling (TTS), such as majority voting, yield surprisingly effective rewards suitable for driving RL training. In this work, we introduce Test-Time Reinforcement Learning (TTRL), a novel method for training LLMs using RL on unlabeled data. TTRL enables self-evolution of LLMs by utilizing the priors in the pre-trained models. Our experiments demonstrate that TTRL consistently improves performance across a variety of tasks and models. Notably, TTRL boosts the pass@1 performance of Qwen-2.5-Math-7B by approximately 211% on the AIME 2024 with only unlabeled test data. Furthermore, although TTRL is only supervised by the maj@n metric, TTRL has demonstrated performance to consistently surpass the upper limit of the initial model maj@n, and approach the performance of models trained directly on test data with ground-truth labels. Our experimental findings validate the general effectiveness of TTRL across various tasks and highlight TTRL's potential for broader tasks and domains. GitHub: https://github.com/PRIME-RL/TTRL
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representative citing papers
MemDLM embeds a simulated denoising trajectory into DLM training via bi-level optimization, creating a parametric memory that improves convergence and long-context performance even when the memory is dropped at test time.
SOLACE improves text-to-image generation by using intrinsic self-confidence rewards from noise reconstruction accuracy during reinforcement learning post-training without external supervision.
TTT-Discover applies test-time RL to set new state-of-the-art results on math inequalities, GPU kernels, algorithm contests, and single-cell denoising using an open model and public code.
DeepVerifier enables self-evolving deep research agents via rubric-guided verification at test time, delivering 8-11% accuracy gains on GAIA and XBench-DeepSearch subsets.
ZeroSiam is an asymmetric architecture using a learnable predictor and stop-gradient that prevents collapse in test-time entropy minimization while also regularizing biased signals for improved performance.
GC-TTT adapts goal-conditioned policies at test time by fine-tuning on self-supervised selected goal-related offline data, yielding performance gains in loco-navigation and manipulation tasks.
One training example via RLVR boosts LLM math reasoning from 17.6% to 35.7% average across six benchmarks.
BRRL derives an analytic optimal policy for regularized constrained RL that guarantees monotonic improvement and yields the BPO algorithm that matches or exceeds PPO.
A model trained only by proposing and solving its own verifiable code tasks achieves state-of-the-art results on math and coding benchmarks without external data.
TTRL-Guard mitigates the Correct-Answer Extinction Window in test-time RL via flip-rate-aware reward scaling, minority-preserving sampling, and risk-conditioned sparse updates, yielding best average pass@1 on Qwen models and +54% relative gain on AIME 2025.
SpeciaRL applies a dynamic verifier-based reward in reinforcement learning to steer reasoning LMMs toward correct and specific predictions on fine-grained open-world image classification tasks.
MOA applies multi-objective RL with fine-grained rubrics and thought-augmented rollouts to role-playing agents, enabling an 8B model to match closed-source performance on PersonaGym and RoleMRC benchmarks.
Parallel inference rollouts aggregated into pseudo-references enable reference-free RL supervision that matches expert-annotated performance on health tasks while using 9x less test-time compute.
Survey that defines agentic RL for LLMs via POMDPs, introduces a taxonomy of planning/tool-use/memory/reasoning capabilities and domains, and compiles open environments from over 500 papers.
InternBootcamp supplies 1000+ verifiable, auto-generated task environments across domains that enable task scaling to improve LLM reasoning, producing a 32B model with state-of-the-art results on the new Bootcamp-EVAL benchmark.
Entropy minimization on self-generated outputs elicits strong reasoning in pretrained LLMs, matching or exceeding supervised RL methods on benchmarks.
LUFFY mixes off-policy reasoning traces into RLVR training via Mixed-Policy GRPO and regularized importance sampling, delivering over 6-point gains on math benchmarks and enabling training of weak models where on-policy RLVR fails.
MLS-Bench shows that current AI agents fall short of reliably inventing generalizable ML methods, with engineering tuning easier than genuine invention.
Mutual Reinforcement Learning allows heterogeneous LLMs to exchange experience through mechanisms like Peer Rollout Pooling, Cross-Policy GRPO Advantage Sharing, and Success-Gated Transfer, with outcome-level sharing identified as favorable on the stability-support trade-off.
GXPO approximates longer local lookahead in GRPO training via gradient extrapolation from two optimizer steps using three backward passes total, improving pass@1 accuracy by 1.65-5.00 points over GRPO and delivering up to 4x step speedup.
A training recipe for tool-integrated reasoning models achieves state-of-the-art open-source results on math benchmarks such as 96.7% and 99.2% on AIME 2025 at 4B and 30B scales by balancing tool-use trajectories and optimizing for pass@k during SFT before stable RLVR.
DDRL reduces spurious reward noise in test-time RL for math by excluding ambiguous samples, using fixed advantages, and adding consensus-based updates, outperforming prior TTRL methods on math benchmarks.
ProactAgent learns a proactive retrieval policy via reinforcement learning on paired task continuations, improving lifelong agent performance and cutting retrieval overhead on SciWorld, AlfWorld, and StuLife.
citing papers explorer
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SARL: Label-Free Reinforcement Learning by Rewarding Reasoning Topology
SARL rewards reasoning topology to improve label-free RL, outperforming baselines with gains up to 44.7% on math and 34.6% on open-ended tasks while maintaining more stable training.
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MemDLM: Memory-Enhanced DLM Training
MemDLM embeds a simulated denoising trajectory into DLM training via bi-level optimization, creating a parametric memory that improves convergence and long-context performance even when the memory is dropped at test time.
-
Improving Text-to-Image Generation with Intrinsic Self-Confidence Rewards
SOLACE improves text-to-image generation by using intrinsic self-confidence rewards from noise reconstruction accuracy during reinforcement learning post-training without external supervision.
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Learning to Discover at Test Time
TTT-Discover applies test-time RL to set new state-of-the-art results on math inequalities, GPU kernels, algorithm contests, and single-cell denoising using an open model and public code.
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Inference-Time Scaling of Verification: Self-Evolving Deep Research Agents via Test-Time Rubric-Guided Verification
DeepVerifier enables self-evolving deep research agents via rubric-guided verification at test time, delivering 8-11% accuracy gains on GAIA and XBench-DeepSearch subsets.
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ZeroSiam: An Efficient Asymmetry for Test-Time Entropy Optimization without Collapse
ZeroSiam is an asymmetric architecture using a learnable predictor and stop-gradient that prevents collapse in test-time entropy minimization while also regularizing biased signals for improved performance.
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Test-time Offline Reinforcement Learning on Goal-related Experience
GC-TTT adapts goal-conditioned policies at test time by fine-tuning on self-supervised selected goal-related offline data, yielding performance gains in loco-navigation and manipulation tasks.
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Reinforcement Learning for Reasoning in Large Language Models with One Training Example
One training example via RLVR boosts LLM math reasoning from 17.6% to 35.7% average across six benchmarks.
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Bounded Ratio Reinforcement Learning
BRRL derives an analytic optimal policy for regularized constrained RL that guarantees monotonic improvement and yields the BPO algorithm that matches or exceeds PPO.
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Absolute Zero: Reinforced Self-play Reasoning with Zero Data
A model trained only by proposing and solving its own verifiable code tasks achieves state-of-the-art results on math and coding benchmarks without external data.
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When the Majority Votes Wrong, the Intervention Timing for Test-Time Reinforcement Learning Hides in the Extinction Window
TTRL-Guard mitigates the Correct-Answer Extinction Window in test-time RL via flip-rate-aware reward scaling, minority-preserving sampling, and risk-conditioned sparse updates, yielding best average pass@1 on Qwen models and +54% relative gain on AIME 2025.
-
Specificity-aware reinforcement learning for fine-grained open-world classification
SpeciaRL applies a dynamic verifier-based reward in reinforcement learning to steer reasoning LMMs toward correct and specific predictions on fine-grained open-world image classification tasks.
-
MOA: Multi-Objective Alignment for Role-Playing Agents
MOA applies multi-objective RL with fine-grained rubrics and thought-augmented rollouts to role-playing agents, enabling an 8B model to match closed-source performance on PersonaGym and RoleMRC benchmarks.
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Compute as Teacher: Turning Inference Compute Into Reference-Free Supervision
Parallel inference rollouts aggregated into pseudo-references enable reference-free RL supervision that matches expert-annotated performance on health tasks while using 9x less test-time compute.
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The Landscape of Agentic Reinforcement Learning for LLMs: A Survey
Survey that defines agentic RL for LLMs via POMDPs, introduces a taxonomy of planning/tool-use/memory/reasoning capabilities and domains, and compiles open environments from over 500 papers.
-
InternBootcamp Technical Report: Boosting LLM Reasoning with Verifiable Task Scaling
InternBootcamp supplies 1000+ verifiable, auto-generated task environments across domains that enable task scaling to improve LLM reasoning, producing a 32B model with state-of-the-art results on the new Bootcamp-EVAL benchmark.
-
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Entropy Minimization in LLM Reasoning
Entropy minimization on self-generated outputs elicits strong reasoning in pretrained LLMs, matching or exceeding supervised RL methods on benchmarks.
-
Learning to Reason under Off-Policy Guidance
LUFFY mixes off-policy reasoning traces into RLVR training via Mixed-Policy GRPO and regularized importance sampling, delivering over 6-point gains on math benchmarks and enabling training of weak models where on-policy RLVR fails.
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MLS-Bench: A Holistic and Rigorous Assessment of AI Systems on Building Better AI
MLS-Bench shows that current AI agents fall short of reliably inventing generalizable ML methods, with engineering tuning easier than genuine invention.
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Experience Sharing in Mutual Reinforcement Learning for Heterogeneous Language Models
Mutual Reinforcement Learning allows heterogeneous LLMs to exchange experience through mechanisms like Peer Rollout Pooling, Cross-Policy GRPO Advantage Sharing, and Success-Gated Transfer, with outcome-level sharing identified as favorable on the stability-support trade-off.
-
Gradient Extrapolation-Based Policy Optimization
GXPO approximates longer local lookahead in GRPO training via gradient extrapolation from two optimizer steps using three backward passes total, improving pass@1 accuracy by 1.65-5.00 points over GRPO and delivering up to 4x step speedup.
-
Teaching Thinking Models to Reason with Tools: A Full-Pipeline Recipe for Tool-Integrated Reasoning
A training recipe for tool-integrated reasoning models achieves state-of-the-art open-source results on math benchmarks such as 96.7% and 99.2% on AIME 2025 at 4B and 30B scales by balancing tool-use trajectories and optimizing for pass@k during SFT before stable RLVR.
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Understanding and Mitigating Spurious Signal Amplification in Test-Time Reinforcement Learning for Math Reasoning
DDRL reduces spurious reward noise in test-time RL for math by excluding ambiguous samples, using fixed advantages, and adding consensus-based updates, outperforming prior TTRL methods on math benchmarks.
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Ask Only When Needed: Proactive Retrieval from Memory and Skills for Experience-Driven Lifelong Agents
ProactAgent learns a proactive retrieval policy via reinforcement learning on paired task continuations, improving lifelong agent performance and cutting retrieval overhead on SciWorld, AlfWorld, and StuLife.
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TEMPO: Scaling Test-time Training for Large Reasoning Models
TEMPO scales test-time training for large reasoning models by interleaving policy refinement on unlabeled data with critic recalibration on labeled data via an EM formulation, yielding large gains on AIME tasks.
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Too Correct to Learn: Reinforcement Learning on Saturated Reasoning Data
A parameter-free sampling strategy called CUTS combined with Mixed-CUTS training prevents mode collapse in RL for saturated LLM reasoning tasks and raises AIME25 Pass@1 accuracy by up to 15.1% over standard GRPO.
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Characterizing Model-Native Skills
Recovering an orthogonal basis from model activations yields a model-native skill characterization that improves reasoning Pass@1 by up to 41% via targeted data selection and supports inference steering, outperforming human-characterized alternatives.
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MARS$^2$: Scaling Multi-Agent Tree Search via Reinforcement Learning for Code Generation
MARS² integrates multi-agent collaboration with tree-structured search in RL to boost code generation by increasing exploratory diversity and using path-level group advantages for credit assignment.
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ZeroCoder: Can LLMs Improve Code Generation Without Ground-Truth Supervision?
ZeroCoder co-evolves coder and tester LLMs via self-generated code-test execution feedback to improve code generation up to 21.6% without ground-truth supervision.
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Can LLMs Learn to Reason Robustly under Noisy Supervision?
Online Label Refinement lets LLMs learn robust reasoning from noisy supervision by correcting labels when majority answers show rising rollout success and stable history, delivering 3-4% gains on math and reasoning benchmarks even at high noise levels.
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GrandCode: Achieving Grandmaster Level in Competitive Programming via Agentic Reinforcement Learning
GrandCode is the first AI system to consistently beat all human participants and place first in live Codeforces competitive programming contests.
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SOLAR: A Self-Optimizing Open-Ended Autonomous Agent for Lifelong Learning and Continual Adaptation
SOLAR introduces a self-optimizing agent using meta-learning on model weights and RL-driven strategy discovery for lifelong adaptation in LLMs, claiming superior performance on reasoning tasks across domains.
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VI-CuRL: Stabilizing Verifier-Independent RL Reasoning via Confidence-Guided Variance Reduction
VI-CuRL stabilizes verifier-independent RL for LLM reasoning via confidence-guided curriculum that reduces action and problem variance, with a claimed proof of asymptotic unbiasedness and empirical gains over baselines.
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Learning to Pose Problems: Reasoning-Driven and Solver-Adaptive Data Synthesis
A reasoning-driven problem generator plans synthesis directions with CoT and uses solver performance feedback to adapt difficulty, producing complementary problems that yield a 3.4% average improvement across 10 reasoning benchmarks.
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Direct Reasoning Optimization: Token-Level Reasoning Reflectivity Meets Rubric Gates for Unverifiable Tasks
Direct Reasoning Optimization applies token-level Reasoning Reflection Reward (R3) focused on high-variance tokens and rubric-gating constraints to improve sample-efficient RL training of LLMs on unverifiable tasks.
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PACEvolve++: Improving Test-time Learning for Evolutionary Search Agents
PACEvolve++ uses a phase-adaptive reinforcement learning advisor to decouple hypothesis selection from execution in LLM-driven evolutionary search, delivering faster convergence than prior frameworks on load balancing, recommendation, and protein tasks.
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StraTA: Incentivizing Agentic Reinforcement Learning with Strategic Trajectory Abstraction
StraTA improves LLM agent success rates to 93.1% on ALFWorld and 84.2% on WebShop by sampling a compact initial strategy and training it jointly with action execution via hierarchical GRPO-style rollouts.
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Triviality Corrected Endogenous Reward
TCER corrects triviality bias in endogenous rewards for text generation by rewarding relative information gain modulated by probability correction, yielding consistent unsupervised improvements on writing benchmarks and transferring to math reasoning.
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Free Energy-Driven Reinforcement Learning with Adaptive Advantage Shaping for Unsupervised Reasoning in LLMs
FREIA applies free energy principles and adaptive advantage shaping to unsupervised RL, outperforming baselines by 0.5-3.5 Pass@1 points on math reasoning with a 1.5B model.
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Skywork Open Reasoner 1 Technical Report
Skywork-OR1 uses RL on distilled CoT models to lift math and coding benchmark accuracy by 13-15 points while open-sourcing everything.
- RISE: Reliable Improvement in Self-Evolving Vision-Language Models