Papers › ConfigX: Modular Configuration for Evolutionary Algorithms via Multitask Reinforcement Learning

ConfigX: Modular Configuration for Evolutionary Algorithms via Multitask Reinforcement Learning

10 Dec 2024arXiv:2412.07507archive 2025-07-28

Hongshu Guo, Zeyuan Ma, Jiacheng Chen, Yining Ma, Zhiguang Cao, Xinglin Zhang, Yue-Jiao Gong

Recent advances in Meta-learning for Black-Box Optimization (MetaBBO) have shown the potential of using neural networks to dynamically configure evolutionary algorithms (EAs), enhancing their performance and adaptability across various BBO instances. However, they are often tailored to a specific EA, which limits their generalizability and necessitates retraining or redesigns for different EAs and optimization problems. To address this limitation, we introduce ConfigX, a new paradigm of the MetaBBO framework that is capable of learning a universal configuration agent (model) for boosting diverse EAs. To achieve so, our ConfigX first leverages a novel modularization system that enables the flexible combination of various optimization sub-modules to generate diverse EAs during training. Additionally, we propose a Transformer-based neural network to meta-learn a universal configuration policy through multitask reinforcement learning across a designed joint optimization task space. Extensive experiments verify that, our ConfigX, after large-scale pre-training, achieves robust zero-shot generalization to unseen tasks and outperforms state-of-the-art baselines. Moreover, ConfigX exhibits strong lifelong learning capabilities, allowing efficient adaptation to new tasks through fine-tuning. Our proposed ConfigX represents a significant step toward an automatic, all-purpose configuration agent for EAs.

PaperPDFCode

In Syntology Open this paper in Syntology's Atlas, the map of the papers in Syntology's graph and their citations.

Code

GMC-DRL/ConfigX mentioned on GitHubpytorch report

Repository list and official/mentioned flags are the archive's, frozen 2025-07-28. Reachability, where shown, is from one Syntology probe window (2026-09-16 to 2026-09-18); repositories not probed show nothing. GitHub stars are not tracked.

Code Syntology ran Syntology

Not run by Syntology. Nothing on this page verifies that the listed code works.

Tasks

Evolutionary AlgorithmsLifelong learningMeta-LearningReinforcement LearningZero-shot Generalizationreinforcement-learning

Results from the paper archive 2025-07-28

No leaderboard rows for this paper in the archive.

Report a problem or propose a change · a person checks every report against the paper or source before anything changes; decisions are listed on /corrections