Papers › Task-Oriented Dialogue with In-Context Learning

Task-Oriented Dialogue with In-Context Learning

19 Feb 2024arXiv:2402.12234archive 2025-07-28

Tom Bocklisch, Thomas Werkmeister, Daksh Varshneya, Alan Nichol

We describe a system for building task-oriented dialogue systems combining the in-context learning abilities of large language models (LLMs) with the deterministic execution of business logic. LLMs are used to translate between the surface form of the conversation and a domain-specific language (DSL) which is used to progress the business logic. We compare our approach to the intent-based NLU approach predominantly used in industry today. Our experiments show that developing chatbots with our system requires significantly less effort than established approaches, that these chatbots can successfully navigate complex dialogues which are extremely challenging for NLU-based systems, and that our system has desirable properties for scaling task-oriented dialogue systems to a large number of tasks. We make our implementation available for use and further study.

PaperPDFCode

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

Code

rasahq/tod-in-context-learning officialmentioned in papermentioned on GitHub 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

In-Context LearningNavigateTask-Oriented Dialogue Systems

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