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Main Authors: Xia, Linxuan, Yang, Xiaolong, Chen, Yongyuan, Zhao, Enyue, Cai, Deng, Wang, Yasheng, Wu, Boxi
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.10819
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author Xia, Linxuan
Yang, Xiaolong
Chen, Yongyuan
Zhao, Enyue
Cai, Deng
Wang, Yasheng
Wu, Boxi
author_facet Xia, Linxuan
Yang, Xiaolong
Chen, Yongyuan
Zhao, Enyue
Cai, Deng
Wang, Yasheng
Wu, Boxi
contents Aligning large language models (LLMs) on domain-specific data remains a fundamental challenge. Supervised fine-tuning (SFT) offers a straightforward way to inject domain knowledge but often degrades the model's generality. In contrast, on-policy reinforcement learning (RL) preserves generality but fails to effectively assimilate hard samples that exceed the model's current reasoning level. Recent off-policy RL attempts improve hard sample utilization, yet they suffer from severe training instability due to the forced distribution shift toward off-policy knowledge. To reconcile effective off-policy knowledge absorption with the stability of on-policy RL, we propose Rephrasing Policy Optimization (RePO). In RePO, the policy model is prompted to first comprehend off-policy knowledge and then rephrase it into trajectories that conform to its own stylistic and parametric distribution. RePO dynamically replaces low-reward rollouts with these rephrased, high-quality trajectories. This strategy guides the model toward correct reasoning paths while strictly preserving on-policy training dynamics. Experiments on several benchmarks demonstrate that RePO improves hard-sample utilization and outperforms existing baselines, achieving state-of-the-art performance.
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publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle RePO: Bridging On-Policy Learning and Off-Policy Knowledge through Rephrasing Policy Optimization
Xia, Linxuan
Yang, Xiaolong
Chen, Yongyuan
Zhao, Enyue
Cai, Deng
Wang, Yasheng
Wu, Boxi
Machine Learning
Aligning large language models (LLMs) on domain-specific data remains a fundamental challenge. Supervised fine-tuning (SFT) offers a straightforward way to inject domain knowledge but often degrades the model's generality. In contrast, on-policy reinforcement learning (RL) preserves generality but fails to effectively assimilate hard samples that exceed the model's current reasoning level. Recent off-policy RL attempts improve hard sample utilization, yet they suffer from severe training instability due to the forced distribution shift toward off-policy knowledge. To reconcile effective off-policy knowledge absorption with the stability of on-policy RL, we propose Rephrasing Policy Optimization (RePO). In RePO, the policy model is prompted to first comprehend off-policy knowledge and then rephrase it into trajectories that conform to its own stylistic and parametric distribution. RePO dynamically replaces low-reward rollouts with these rephrased, high-quality trajectories. This strategy guides the model toward correct reasoning paths while strictly preserving on-policy training dynamics. Experiments on several benchmarks demonstrate that RePO improves hard-sample utilization and outperforms existing baselines, achieving state-of-the-art performance.
title RePO: Bridging On-Policy Learning and Off-Policy Knowledge through Rephrasing Policy Optimization
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.10819