Papers › Modular Lifelong Reinforcement Learning via Neural Composition

Modular Lifelong Reinforcement Learning via Neural Composition

1 Jul 2022ICLR 2022 4arXiv:2207.00429archive 2025-07-28

Jorge A. Mendez, Harm van Seijen, Eric Eaton

Humans commonly solve complex problems by decomposing them into easier subproblems and then combining the subproblem solutions. This type of compositional reasoning permits reuse of the subproblem solutions when tackling future tasks that share part of the underlying compositional structure. In a continual or lifelong reinforcement learning (RL) setting, this ability to decompose knowledge into reusable components would enable agents to quickly learn new RL tasks by leveraging accumulated compositional structures. We explore a particular form of composition based on neural modules and present a set of RL problems that intuitively admit compositional solutions. Empirically, we demonstrate that neural composition indeed captures the underlying structure of this space of problems. We further propose a compositional lifelong RL method that leverages accumulated neural components to accelerate the learning of future tasks while retaining performance on previous tasks via off-line RL over replayed experiences.

PaperPDFConference PDFCodeCode Syntology ran

In Syntology View this paper on Syntology: its repositories, every harvested function with whether it ran, its licence and the call to fetch it.

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

For agents, Syntology's MCP tool lists every function and class Syntology harvested from this paper and whether it ran (how to connect): get_harvested_code_for_paper(arxiv_id="2207.00429")

Code

Syntology Ran 1 of 4 code samples harvested from 1 repository linked to this paper; 3 have no recorded run. Of those that ran: 1 ran with no contract checked.

By repository: official repository: 4 samples from 1 repository, 1 ran. The run record, sample by sample. “Ran” means executed on a synthesized input, not that the code is correct or reproduces the paper.

lifelong-ml/mendez2022modularlifelongrl officialmentioned in paperpytorchApache-2.0 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

4 samples harvested; 1 ran; 0 honoured the contract we drafted; 3 have no recorded run. Read from Syntology's graph 2026-09-25; that is when this build read the record, not when the samples ran.

1ran
3unverified

Licence: 0 of the 4 samples are pointer only, meaning Syntology does not serve that copy's text. This page shows no code text for any sample; each one links to its file in the repository.

Harvested from Lifelong-ML/Mendez2022ModularLifelongRL. “Ran” means the sample executed on a synthesized input. It does not mean the output is correct, and nothing here reproduces the paper's results. “Honoured” and “violated” refer to a contract Syntology drafted from the code itself; “our draft was wrong” and “fixture could not drive it” are failures of Syntology's instrument, not of the code.

Each sample ends with its code_sha256, Syntology's identity for that exact code. An agent fetches the stored sample with Syntology's MCP tool get_code(code_sha256="…") (how to connect); click an identity to copy that call.

Repository labels, per sample. official repository: The archive marks this repository official for the paper. named in the paper: The archive records that the paper mentions this repository; it is not marked official. community (archive-listed): In the archive's code links for this paper, not marked official and not recorded as mentioned in the paper. found in paper text by Syntology: 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. Samples from a repository marked official are listed first. Licence labels name the repository's licence as recorded at harvest. “Pointer only” means Syntology does not serve that copy's text, for one of four reasons: no licence file was found; the licence was not identified; the licence is recorded as permissive but that copy's record is not marked cleared; or the licence is outside the permissive list Syntology serves text under (MIT, Apache-2.0, BSD and similar). Some licences outside that list permit redistribution, such as WTFPL, and GPL-3.0 under its conditions; they are simply not on the list. Hover a licence label for the reason. File links open the file on GitHub at the default branch, which may have changed since the harvest.

reject_next_to Lifelong-ML/Mendez2022ModularLifelongRL/Discrete2D/gym-minigrid/gym_minigrid/roomgrid.py official repository ran Apache-2.0 (permissive) · beb7d468d5185af5 · report
downsample Lifelong-ML/Mendez2022ModularLifelongRL/Discrete2D/gym-minigrid/gym_minigrid/rendering.py official repository unverified Apache-2.0 (permissive) · 59df34732c3e3418 · report
fill_coords Lifelong-ML/Mendez2022ModularLifelongRL/Discrete2D/gym-minigrid/gym_minigrid/rendering.py official repository unverified Apache-2.0 (permissive) · bd9c272b32f75522 · report
rotate_fn Lifelong-ML/Mendez2022ModularLifelongRL/Discrete2D/gym-minigrid/gym_minigrid/rendering.py official repository unverified Apache-2.0 (permissive) · 8990d1cc61cec299 · report

Tasks

Reinforcement LearningReinforcement Learning (RL)reinforcement-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