Structured In-context Environment Scaling for Large Language Model Reasoning

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Yu, Peng, Zhao, Zeyuan, Zhang, Shao, Fu, Luoyi, Wang, Xinbing, Wen, Ying
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Yu, Peng
Zhao, Zeyuan
Zhang, Shao
Fu, Luoyi
Wang, Xinbing
Wen, Ying
author_facet Yu, Peng
Zhao, Zeyuan
Zhang, Shao
Fu, Luoyi
Wang, Xinbing
Wen, Ying
contents Large language models (LLMs) have achieved significant advancements in reasoning capabilities through reinforcement learning (RL) via environmental exploration. As the intrinsic properties of the environment determine the abilities that LLMs can learn, the environment plays a important role in the RL finetuning process. An ideal LLM reasoning environment should possess three core characteristics: scalability, generalizable reasoning, and verifiability. However, existing mathematical and coding environments are difficult to scale due to heavy reliance on expert annotation, while the skills learned in game-based environments are too specialized to generalize. To bridge this gap, we introduce the \textbf{S}tructured \textbf{I}n-context \textbf{E}nvironment (SIE) framework. SIE achieves scalability by automatically constructing reasoning environments from large-scale structured data, where the rich compositional patterns naturally support generalizable reasoning. Moreover, the explicit schemas and reasoning chains in structured data provide a foundation for rule-based verifiability. Experimental results show that SIE framework not only achieves substantial improvements in in-domain structured reasoning, but also enables the learned compositional reasoning skills to generalize effectively to out-of-domain mathematical and logical reasoning tasks. We further explored learning in information-limited partial SIEs and found that LLMs can infer the missing information through exploring the environment, leading to robust reasoning improvements and generalization performance.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_23330
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Structured In-context Environment Scaling for Large Language Model Reasoning
Yu, Peng
Zhao, Zeyuan
Zhang, Shao
Fu, Luoyi
Wang, Xinbing
Wen, Ying
Computation and Language
Large language models (LLMs) have achieved significant advancements in reasoning capabilities through reinforcement learning (RL) via environmental exploration. As the intrinsic properties of the environment determine the abilities that LLMs can learn, the environment plays a important role in the RL finetuning process. An ideal LLM reasoning environment should possess three core characteristics: scalability, generalizable reasoning, and verifiability. However, existing mathematical and coding environments are difficult to scale due to heavy reliance on expert annotation, while the skills learned in game-based environments are too specialized to generalize. To bridge this gap, we introduce the \textbf{S}tructured \textbf{I}n-context \textbf{E}nvironment (SIE) framework. SIE achieves scalability by automatically constructing reasoning environments from large-scale structured data, where the rich compositional patterns naturally support generalizable reasoning. Moreover, the explicit schemas and reasoning chains in structured data provide a foundation for rule-based verifiability. Experimental results show that SIE framework not only achieves substantial improvements in in-domain structured reasoning, but also enables the learned compositional reasoning skills to generalize effectively to out-of-domain mathematical and logical reasoning tasks. We further explored learning in information-limited partial SIEs and found that LLMs can infer the missing information through exploring the environment, leading to robust reasoning improvements and generalization performance.
title Structured In-context Environment Scaling for Large Language Model Reasoning
topic Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.23330