RobustSGPO: Search-Space Control for Agent Harness Evolution — Paper

Abstract

Semantic-gradient-based prompt optimization (SGPO) improves agent harnesses using execution feedback, but its local update rule leaves the choice of edit scope and operation unresolved. We introduce RobustSGPO, which specifies the requested edit, constructs and checks the patch, and continues search from either the incumbent or retained snapshots. We evaluate permission scheduling, cumulative controls, and task-family transfer in the AgentX brainstorming workflow using 120 tasks, 95 runs, and 7,350 candidate attempts. Periodic $1\to2\to3$ scheduling exceeds fixed maximum permission by 0.28 test-score points. RobustSGPO increases completion on 30 held-out tasks from 60.0% to 80.0% and improves test quality from 3.77 to 4.14 under a 20-million-token budget. Category retention reduces source-task degradation after a shift, whereas random retention reaches a higher destination endpoint. Search-space control benefits quality through executable edits and alternative starting points, with measurable retention overhead.

Authors 12

Zibo Zhao, Jijun Shi, Mo Zhou, Zhongyuan Wang, Shifu Bie, Yunfei Zhang, Xuanting Zhou, Xiangyu Wu, Bin Liu, Ruiming Tang, Wenwu Ou, Kun Gai

Specification

Official page: arxiv.org/abs/2609.09646
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 1 h agohigh
Arxiv announce type: new
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 1 h agohigh
arXiv id: 2609.09646
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 1 h agohigh
Categories: cs.AI
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 1 h agohigh
PDF: arxiv.org/pdf/2609.09646
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 1 h agohigh
Primary category: cs.AI
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 1 h agohigh
Published: 11 Sept 2026
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 1 h agohigh

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T19

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1 h ago

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Authors: Zibo Zhao, Jijun Shi, Mo Zhou

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Claim history for Authors
Value	Valid from → to	Status	Source	Confidence	Extractor
Zibo Zhao, Jijun Shi, Mo Zhou, Zhongyuan Wang, Shifu Bie, Yunfei Zhang, Xuanting Zhou, Xiangyu Wu, Bin Liu, Ruiming Tang, Wenwu Ou, Kun Gai	11 Sept 2026 21:03 UTC → current	current	arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1	high	deterministic

Claims are temporal and append-only: a new observation closes the previous claim (valid_to) instead of overwriting it. Conflicting claims from different sources are kept side by side and flagged — never averaged. Methodology →

11 Sept 2026
New paperPaperRobustSGPO: Search-Space Control for Agent Harness Evolution
New paper: RobustSGPO: Search-Space Control for Agent Harness Evolution
arxiv
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Source documents
Source	Document	Type	Tier	Last observed	Snapshots
arXiv (Atom API + RSS)	rss.arxiv.org/rss/cs.AI	feed	T1· Official	1 h ago	1

Tier 1 = official/primary, 2 = quality secondary, 3 = community, 4 = unverified. Every snapshot is archived; see all sources and the methodology.