PRACT: Optimizing Principled Reasoning and Acting of LLM Agent

Abstract: We introduce the Principled Reasoning and Acting (PRAct) framework, a novel method for learning and enforcing action principles from trajectory data. Central to our approach is the use of text gradients from a reflection and optimization engine to derive these action principles. To adapt action principles to specific task requirements, we propose a new optimization framework, Reflective Principle Optimization (RPO). After execution, RPO employs a reflector to critique current action principles and an optimizer to update them accordingly. We develop the RPO framework under two scenarios: Reward-RPO, which uses environmental rewards for reflection, and Self-RPO, which conducts self-reflection without external rewards. Additionally, two RPO methods, RPO-Traj and RPO-Batch, is introduced to adapt to different settings. Experimental results across four environments demonstrate that the PRAct agent, leveraging the RPO framework, effectively learns and applies action principles to enhance performance.