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Main Authors: Tran, Quan M., Huang, Zhuo, Zhang, Wenbin, Han, Bo, Yatani, Koji, Sugiyama, Masashi, Liu, Tongliang
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.05810
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author Tran, Quan M.
Huang, Zhuo
Zhang, Wenbin
Han, Bo
Yatani, Koji
Sugiyama, Masashi
Liu, Tongliang
author_facet Tran, Quan M.
Huang, Zhuo
Zhang, Wenbin
Han, Bo
Yatani, Koji
Sugiyama, Masashi
Liu, Tongliang
contents Autonomous agents excel in self-improvement through reflection and iterative refinement, which reuse successful task trajectories as in-context examples to assist subsequent reasoning. However, shifting across tasks often introduces a context mismatch. Hence, existing approaches either discard the trajectories or manipulate them using heuristics, leading to a non-negligible fine-tuning cost or unguaranteed performance. To bridge this gap, we reveal a context-trajectory correlation, where shifts of context are highly parallel with shifts of trajectory. Based on this finding, we propose BrIdge contextual gap FoR imprOvised trajectory STeering (Bifrost), a training-free method that leverages context differences to precisely guide the adaptation of previously solved trajectories towards the target task, mitigating the misalignment caused by context shifts. Our trajectory adaptation is conducted at the representation level using agent hidden states, ensuring trajectory transformation accurately aligns with the target context in a shared space. Across diverse benchmarks, Bifrost consistently outperforms existing trajectory reuse and finetuned self-improvement methods, demonstrating that agents can effectively leverage past experiences despite substantial context shifts.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_05810
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Bifrost: Steering Strategic Trajectories to Bridge Contextual Gaps for Self-Improving Agents
Tran, Quan M.
Huang, Zhuo
Zhang, Wenbin
Han, Bo
Yatani, Koji
Sugiyama, Masashi
Liu, Tongliang
Machine Learning
Autonomous agents excel in self-improvement through reflection and iterative refinement, which reuse successful task trajectories as in-context examples to assist subsequent reasoning. However, shifting across tasks often introduces a context mismatch. Hence, existing approaches either discard the trajectories or manipulate them using heuristics, leading to a non-negligible fine-tuning cost or unguaranteed performance. To bridge this gap, we reveal a context-trajectory correlation, where shifts of context are highly parallel with shifts of trajectory. Based on this finding, we propose BrIdge contextual gap FoR imprOvised trajectory STeering (Bifrost), a training-free method that leverages context differences to precisely guide the adaptation of previously solved trajectories towards the target task, mitigating the misalignment caused by context shifts. Our trajectory adaptation is conducted at the representation level using agent hidden states, ensuring trajectory transformation accurately aligns with the target context in a shared space. Across diverse benchmarks, Bifrost consistently outperforms existing trajectory reuse and finetuned self-improvement methods, demonstrating that agents can effectively leverage past experiences despite substantial context shifts.
title Bifrost: Steering Strategic Trajectories to Bridge Contextual Gaps for Self-Improving Agents
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.05810