{"about":{"site":"https://codewithpapers.app","non_affiliation":"Code with Papers and Syntology are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Papers with Code, Meta, or the pwc-archive mirror.","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","licence_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode","attribution":"https://codewithpapers.app/attribution","modified":"archive material modified by Syntology; see the attribution page"},"url":"/paper/a-method-for-evaluating-hyperparameter","title":"A Method for Evaluating Hyperparameter Sensitivity in Reinforcement Learning","arxiv_id":"2412.07165","date":"2024-12-10","proceeding":null,"authors":["Jacob Adkins","Michael Bowling","Adam White"],"abstract":"The performance of modern reinforcement learning algorithms critically relies on tuning ever-increasing numbers of hyperparameters. Often, small changes in a hyperparameter can lead to drastic changes in performance, and different environments require very different hyperparameter settings to achieve state-of-the-art performance reported in the literature. We currently lack a scalable and widely accepted approach to characterizing these complex interactions. This work proposes a new empirical methodology for studying, comparing, and quantifying the sensitivity of an algorithm's performance to hyperparameter tuning for a given set of environments. We then demonstrate the utility of this methodology by assessing the hyperparameter sensitivity of several commonly used normalization variants of PPO. The results suggest that several algorithmic performance improvements may, in fact, be a result of an increased reliance on hyperparameter tuning.","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.07165v1","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2412.07165v1.pdf","source":{"archive":"pwc-archive (Hugging Face), CC BY-SA 4.0","snapshot":"2025-07-28","licence_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode","row_kind":"abstracts"},"code_links":[{"paper_slug":"a-method-for-evaluating-hyperparameter","repo_url":"https://github.com/jadkins99/hyperparameter_sensitivity","is_official":1,"mentioned_in_paper":1,"mentioned_in_github":0,"framework":"jax","reach":null}],"tasks":[{"task_slug":"reinforcement-learning","task_name":"Reinforcement Learning"},{"task_slug":"sensitivity","task_name":"Sensitivity"},{"task_slug":"reinforcement-learning-2","task_name":"reinforcement-learning"}],"methods":[{"method_slug":"entropy-regularization","method_name":"Entropy Regularization"},{"method_slug":"ppo","method_name":"PPO"},{"method_slug":"set","method_name":"SET"}],"datasets_introduced":[],"methods_introduced":[],"results":[],"syntology":{"atlas_url":"https://app.syntology.ai/?focus=2412.07165","mcp":{"get_harvested_code_for_paper":{"arxiv_id":"2412.07165"}},"developers":"https://syntology.ai/developers","read_at":"2026-09-24T18:15:14+00:00","read_at_is":"when the build read Syntology's graph, not when any sample ran","claim":"Per-sample execution status on synthesized fixtures; not a correctness claim about the paper. Samples come from repositories linked to the paper, official or community; repo_kind says which.","repos":[{"provenance":"deterministic:regex_extraction","url":"https://github.com/jadkins99/hyperparameter_","reach":{"status":"gone","observed_at":"2026-09-17","how":"tree_404+repo_404"}},{"provenance":"external:paperswithcode_snapshot_2025-07-28","url":"https://github.com/jadkins99/hyperparameter_sensitivity","reach":null}],"summary":{"ran_draft_wrong":1},"by_repo_kind":{"official":{"samples":1,"ran":1,"repositories":1}},"repo_kind_vocabulary":{"official":"The archive marks this repository official for the paper","named_in_paper":"The archive records that the paper mentions this repository; it is not marked official","listed":"In the archive's code links for this paper, not marked official and not recorded as mentioned in the paper","found_in_text":"Syntology found this repository in the paper's own text; whether it is the authors' implementation is not asserted","community":"Not in the archive's code links for this paper; a community repository Syntology harvested"},"n_pointer_only_for_licence":0,"samples":[{"code_sha256_prefix":"346b6c8dadbb7694","entry":"compute_scores","repo":"jadkins99/hyperparameter_sensitivity","repo_kind":"official","path":"analysis/utils.py","file_url":"https://github.com/jadkins99/hyperparameter_sensitivity/blob/HEAD/analysis/utils.py","link_basis":"first_harvest_node","language":"python","status":"ran_draft_wrong","verification_level":1,"contract_check":"OUTPUT_MISDECLARED","metamorphic_tier":"deterministic","behaviour_fingerprint":false,"licence":"MIT","inline_ok":true,"mcp_get_code":{"code_sha256":"346b6c8dadbb7694"}}]},"arxiv_metadata":null,"syntology_extracted_results":null}