ToolCPT: Improving Tool Utilization in LLM Agents via Continuous Pre-training (2026.findings-acl)
Copied to clipboard
| Challenge: | Current approaches to enhancing tool use for LLM-based agents focus on post-training fine-tuning or test-time context extension. |
| Approach: | They propose to enhance tool knowledge for LLM-based agents during continuous pre-training . they curate 5.1 million code artifacts from large-scale, high-quality code repositories . |
| Outcome: | The proposed model outperforms existing methods on out-of-distribution tools on multiple benchmarks. |
Similar Papers
A Joint Optimization Framework for Enhancing Efficiency of Tool Utilization in LLM Agents (2025.findings-acl)
Copied to clipboard
| Challenge: | Existing efforts for tool utilization involve an LLM agent that contains instructions on using the description of the available tools to determine and call the tools required to solve the problem. |
| Approach: | They propose to optimize the context of LLM agents by combining the instructions provided in agent prompts and tool descriptions to enhance their interaction. |
| Outcome: | The proposed framework improves both the instructions provided in agent prompt and tool description, enhancing their interaction. |
Hephaestus: Improving Fundamental Agent Capabilities of Large Language Models through Continual Pre-Training (2025.naacl-long)
Copied to clipboard
Yuchen Zhuang, Jingfeng Yang, Haoming Jiang, Xin Liu, Kewei Cheng, Sanket Lokegaonkar, Yifan Gao, Qing Ping, Tianyi Liu, Binxuan Huang, Zheng Li, Zhengyang Wang, Pei Chen, Ruijie Wang, Rongzhi Zhang, Nasser Zalmout, Priyanka Nigam, Bing Yin, Chao Zhang
| Challenge: | Existing LLMs often rely on complex prompting or extensive fine-tuning to introduce new capabilities while preserving strong generalizability. |
| Approach: | They propose a large-scale pre-training corpus to enhance LLM agents' capabilities . they use 103B agent-specific data encompassing 76,537 APIs . |
| Outcome: | The proposed training corpus outperforms open-source LLMs and commercial LLM agents on three agent benchmarks. |
Small LLMs Are Weak Tool Learners: A Multi-LLM Agent (2024.emnlp-main)
Copied to clipboard
| Challenge: | Large Language Models (LLMs) have revolutionized natural language processing with impressive capabilities, but they lack domain specificity, real-time information and face challenges in solving specialized problems. |
| Approach: | They propose a multi-LLM approach that decomposes the aforementioned capabilities into a planner, caller, and summarizer. |
| Outcome: | The proposed model outperforms existing models by demonstrating its effectiveness and advantages in tool learning. |
EASYTOOL: Enhancing LLM-based Agents with Concise Tool Instruction (2025.naacl-long)
Copied to clipboard
| Challenge: | EASYTOOL combines tools from diverse tool documentation into a single tool instruction. |
| Approach: | They propose a framework that transforms tool documentation into a unified tool instruction. |
| Outcome: | EASYTOOL combines extensive tool documentation into a concise tool instruction . it reduces token consumption and improves performance of LLM-based agents . |
Learning to Use Tools via Cooperative and Interactive Agents (2024.findings-emnlp)
Copied to clipboard
Zhengliang Shi, Shen Gao, Xiuyi Chen, Yue Feng, Lingyong Yan, Haibo Shi, Dawei Yin, Pengjie Ren, Suzan Verberne, Zhaochun Ren
| Challenge: | Existing methods for large language models (LLMs) use one agent to iterate and execute tools, but they suffer from performance degradation when addressing practical tasks. |
| Approach: | They propose a tool learning framework that coordinates three specialized agents for tool selection, tool execution, and action calibration separately. |
| Outcome: | The proposed framework outperforms baseline models on three datasets with 14% higher success rate. |
Enhancing Open-Domain Task-Solving Capability of LLMs via Autonomous Tool Integration from GitHub (2025.acl-long)
Copied to clipboard
Bohan Lyu, Xin Cong, Heyang Yu, Pan Yang, Cheng Qian, Zihe Wang, Yujia Qin, Yining Ye, Yaxi Lu, Chen Qian, Zhong Zhang, Yukun Yan, Yankai Lin, Zhiyuan Liu, Maosong Sun
| Challenge: | Existing approaches lack flexibility to address diverse and ever-evolving user queries in open domains. |
| Approach: | They propose to evaluate LLMs on open-domain knowledge that requires tools to solve diverse and ever-evolving user queries. |
| Outcome: | The proposed system outperforms baselines in the open domain task-solving benchmark. |
API-Bank: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Tool-Augmented LLMs (2023.emnlp-main)
Copied to clipboard
Minghao Li, Yingxiu Zhao, Bowen Yu, Feifan Song, Hangyu Li, Haiyang Yu, Zhoujun Li, Fei Huang, Yongbin Li
| Challenge: | Recent research has demonstrated that Large Language Models (LLMs) can enhance their capabilities by utilizing external tools. |
| Approach: | They propose a runnable evaluation system consisting of 73 API tools and an annotation system for 314 tool-use dialogues with 753 API calls. |
| Outcome: | The proposed benchmark assesses the effectiveness of existing LLMs by analyzing 314 tool-use dialogues with 753 API calls. |
MCP-Flow: Facilitating LLM Agents to Master Real-World, Diverse and Scaling MCP Tools (2026.acl-long)
Copied to clipboard
WenHao Wang, Peizhi Niu, Zhao Xu, Zhaoyu Chen, Jian Du, Yaxin Du, Xianghe Pang, Keduan Huang, Yanfeng Wang, Qiang Yan, Siheng Chen
| Challenge: | Existing research on Large Language Models (LLMs) relies on few servers and lacks training support. |
| Approach: | They propose a web-agent-driven pipeline for large-scale server discovery, data synthesis, and model training that collects and filters data from 1166 servers and 11536 tools. |
| Outcome: | Empirical evidence shows that MCP-Flow generates higher quality instruction-function call pairs and higher agentic task performance than previous work. |
TPTU-v2: Boosting Task Planning and Tool Usage of Large Language Model-based Agents in Real-world Industry Systems (2024.emnlp-industry)
Copied to clipboard
Yilun Kong, Jingqing Ruan, YiHong Chen, Bin Zhang, Tianpeng Bao, Shi Shiwei, Du Qing, Xiaoru Hu, Hangyu Mao, Ziyue Li, Xingyu Zeng, Rui Zhao, Xueqian Wang
| Challenge: | Large language models have demonstrated proficiency in addressing tasks that necessitate a combination of task planning and the usage of external tools. |
| Approach: | They propose a framework to enhance the task planning and tool usage abilities of LLMs in industrial systems. |
| Outcome: | The proposed framework enhances the task planning and tool usage abilities of LLM-based agents in industrial systems. |
LLMs in the Imaginarium: Tool Learning through Simulated Trial and Error (2024.acl-long)
Copied to clipboard
| Challenge: | Existing work on tool-augmented LLMs focuses on the broad coverage of tools and the flexibility of adding new tools. |
| Approach: | They propose a biologically inspired method for tool-augmented LLMs that orchestrates three key mechanisms for successful tool use behaviors in the biological system: trial and error, imagination, and memory. |
| Outcome: | The proposed method improves tool learning for LLMs under both in-context learning and fine-tuning settings, bringing a boost of 46.7% to Mistral-Instruct-7B and outperforms GPT-4. |