Lune

EMNLP Findings2025

MPO: Boosting LLM Agents with Meta Plan Optimization

Weimin Xiong, Yifan Song, Qingxiu Dong, Bingchan Zhao, Feifan Song, Xun Wang, Sujian Li

Abstract

Recent advancements in large language models (LLMs) have enabled LLM-based agents to successfully tackle interactive planning tasks. However, despite their successes, existing approaches often suffer from planning hallucinations and require retraining for each new agent. To address these challenges, we propose the Meta Plan Optimization (MPO) framework, which enhances agent planning capabilities by directly incorporating explicit guidance. Unlike previous methods that rely on complex knowledge, which either require significant human effort or lack quality assurance, MPO leverages high-level general guidance through meta plans to assist agent planning and enables continuous optimization of the meta plans based on feedback from the agent's task execution. Our experiments conducted on three representative tasks demonstrate that MPO significantly outperforms existing baselines. Moreover, our analysis shows that MPO provides a portable solution that enhances both task completion efficiency and generalization capabilities across new agents and unseen scenarios.

Ask Lune

Ask anything. The answer quotes the paper.

Lune reads all of it and the papers around it, then shows you the passages behind every answer.

Questions to start from

Lune answers from

the full paper · 11 top-tier papers that cite it · related work

Get the answer

Free to start. No credit card required.

Cited by top-tier papers11

  1. OWL: Optimized Workforce Learning for General Multi-Agent Assistance in Real-World Task AutomationMengkang Hu, Yuhang Zhou, Wendong Fan, Yuzhou Nie et al.NeurIPS 2025 · 158 citations
  2. SE-Agent: Self-Evolution Trajectory Optimization in Multi-Step Reasoning with LLM-Based AgentsYifu Guo, Jiaye Lin, Huacan Wang, Yuzhen Han et al.NeurIPS 2025 · 73 citations
  3. SEEA-R1: Tree-Structured Reinforcement Fine-Tuning for Self-Evolving Embodied AgentsWanxin Tian, Shijie Zhang, Kevin Zhang, Xiaowei Chi et al.NeurIPS 2025 · 20 citations
  4. A Goal Without a Plan Is Just a Wish: Efficient and Effective Global Planner Training for Long-Horizon Agent TaskShuzheng Si, Haozhe Zhao, Kangyang Luo, Gang Chen et al.ACL 2026 · 14 citations
  5. RoboAgent: Chaining Basic Capabilities for Embodied Task PlanningPeiran Xu, Jiaqi Zheng, Yadong MuCVPR 2026 · 6 citations

Builds on16

  1. Direct Preference Optimization: Your Language Model is Secretly a Reward ModelRafael Rafailov, Archit Sharma, Eric Mitchell, Christopher D. Manning et al.NeurIPS 2023 · 10,924 citations
  2. Reflexion: language agents with verbal reinforcement learningNoah Shinn, Federico Cassano, Ashwin Gopinath, Karthik Narasimhan et al.NeurIPS 2023 · 5,828 citations
  3. SWE-agent: Agent-Computer Interfaces Enable Automated Software EngineeringJohn Yang, Carlos E. Jimenez, Alexander Wettig, Kilian Lieret et al.NeurIPS 2024 · 2,059 citations
  4. Gorilla: Large Language Model Connected with Massive APIsShishir G. Patil, Tianjun Zhang, Xin Wang, Joseph E. GonzalezNeurIPS 2024 · 1,715 citations
  5. ToolLLM: Facilitating Large Language Models to Master 16000+ Real-world APIsYujia Qin, Shihao Liang, Yining Ye, Kunlun Zhu et al.ICLR 2024 · 1,469 citations

Related papers

  1. CoPE: A Framework for Optimizing Coordination between Planning and Execution in LLM-based AgentsHuanxi Liu, Kun Hu, Qiang Wang, Yuanzhao Zhai et al.ICML 2026
  2. CaPo: Cooperative Plan Optimization for Efficient Embodied Multi-Agent CooperationJie Liu, Pan Zhou, Yingjun Du, Ah-Hwee Tan et al.ICLR 2025
  3. PGPO: Enhancing Agent Reasoning via Pseudocode-style Planning Guided Preference OptimizationZouying Cao, Runze Wang, Yifei Yang, Xinbei Ma et al.ACL Findings 2025 · 2 citations
  4. Agent Planning with World Knowledge ModelShuofei Qiao, Runnan Fang, Ningyu Zhang, Yuqi Zhu et al.NeurIPS 2024 · 95 citations
  5. InstructRAG: Leveraging Retrieval-Augmented Generation on Instruction Graphs for LLM-Based Task PlanningZheng Wang, Shu Xian Teo, Jun Jie Chew, Wei ShiSIGIR 2025 · 4 citations
Dusk over the sea between two cliffs drawn in fine vertical lines