Tool-Star: Empowering Multi-Tool Collaborative Web Agent via Reinforcement Learning
Abstract
Recently, Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable reasoning capabilities through reinforcement learning (RL). However, enabling LLM-based agents to effectively orchestrate multiple tools remains an open challenge. In this paper, we introduce Tool-Star, an end-to-end agentic post-training framework that empowers LLM-based web agents to strategically interact with external multi-tool environments. Tool-Star begins with a general tool-integrated data synthesis pipeline that combines two complementary sampling strategies to generate tool-use trajectories, followed by quality normalization and difficulty-aware curriculum construction to filter noisy samples and organize training data from easy to hard. We then introduce a two-stage training paradigm for multi-tool collaborative reasoning: (1) cold-start supervised fine-tuning with tool feedback to bootstrap long-horizon tool-augmented reasoning, and (2) a multi-tool self-critic RL algorithm with hierarchical rewards to reinforce effective tool coordination. Experiments across 13 benchmarks demonstrate Tool-Star's effectiveness. Further analyses provide practical insights for optimizing strategic tool use in web agents. The code is available at https://github.com/RUC-NLPIR/Tool-Star.
Assigned reviewers
| # | Reviewer | Match | Why (closest evidence publications in the taxonomy) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wonduk Seo | 66 | 75 Automated Visualization Code Synthesis via Multi-path Reasoning and Feedback-Driven Optimizations (2026) Reasoning Evaluation and Benchmarks 64 SPIO: Ensemble and Selective Strategies via LLM-Based Multi-Agent Planning in Automated Data Science (2026) Multi-Agent and Tool-Use Orchestration 31 A New Query Expansion Approach for Enhancing Information Retrieval via Agent-Mediated Dialogic Inquiry (2026) Query Reformulation and Expansion |
|
| 2 | Kaixin Ma | 56 | 75 DSBench: How Far Are Data Science Agents from Becoming Data Science Experts? (2025) Reasoning Evaluation and Benchmarks 72 Retrieval-augmented GUI Agents with Generative Guidelines (2025) Agentic and Deep Search RAG 64 Knowledge-enhanced Agents for Interactive Text Games (2023) Multi-Agent and Tool-Use Orchestration |
|
| 3 | Haritz Puerto | 50 | 62 C-SEO Bench: Does Conversational SEO Work? (2025) Reasoning Evaluation and Benchmarks 54 MetaQA: Combining Expert Agents for Multi-Skill Question Answering (2023) Retrieval-Augmented and Open-Domain QA 49 Fine-Tuning on Diverse Reasoning Chains Drives Within-Inference CoT Refinement in LLMs (2025) Reward Modeling and Process Supervision |
Area chair
| Area chair | Match | |
|---|---|---|
| Dacheng Tao | 41 |
Area-chair candidates (5)
| Xiaoxi Li 0005 COI: author | 49 | 15 papers | |
| Dacheng Tao assigned | 41 | 5 papers | |
| Hongjin Qian COI: author | 35 | 12 papers | |
| Pengyue Jia | 32 | 10 papers | |
| Jun Xu 0001 COI: co-author | 32 | 2 papers |
Candidates from the panel ranked by match score
| # | Reviewer | Match | Load | Why | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wonduk Seo assigned | 66 | 3 | 75 Automated Visualization Code Synthesis via Multi-path Reasoning and Feedback-Driven Optimizations (2026) Reasoning Evaluation and Benchmarks 64 SPIO: Ensemble and Selective Strategies via LLM-Based Multi-Agent Planning in Automated Data Science (2026) Multi-Agent and Tool-Use Orchestration |
|
| 2 | Kaixin Ma assigned | 56 | 3 | 75 DSBench: How Far Are Data Science Agents from Becoming Data Science Experts? (2025) Reasoning Evaluation and Benchmarks 72 Retrieval-augmented GUI Agents with Generative Guidelines (2025) Agentic and Deep Search RAG |
|
| 3 | Haritz Puerto assigned | 50 | 3 | 62 C-SEO Bench: Does Conversational SEO Work? (2025) Reasoning Evaluation and Benchmarks 54 MetaQA: Combining Expert Agents for Multi-Skill Question Answering (2023) Retrieval-Augmented and Open-Domain QA |
|
| 4 | Jialong Wu 0007 | 49 | 3 | 72 WebWalker: Benchmarking LLMs in Web Traversal (2025) Agentic and Deep Search RAG 61 WebDancer: Towards Autonomous Information Seeking Agency (2025) Deep Research and Report Generation |
|
| 6 | Farzad Shami | 46 | 3 | 87 GROKE: Vision-Free Navigation Instruction Evaluation via Graph Reasoning on OpenStreetMap (2026) Reasoning Evaluation and Benchmarks 37 Benchmarking Large Language Models for Knowledge Graph Validation (2026) KG-Augmented LLM Reasoning |
|
| 7 | Farima Fatahi Bayat | 44 | 3 | 75 From Proof to Program: Characterizing Tool-Induced Reasoning Hallucinations in Large Language Models (2026) Reward Modeling and Process Supervision 32 FactBench: A Dynamic Benchmark for In-the-Wild Language Model Factuality Evaluation (2025) Automated Fact Checking and Claim Verification |
|
| 8 | Yu Gu 0016 | 43 | 3 | 75 AgentBench: Evaluating LLMs as Agents (2024) Reasoning Evaluation and Benchmarks 73 Mind2Web 2: Evaluating Agentic Search with Agent-as-a-Judge (2025) Deep Research and Report Generation |
|
| 9 | Xi Ye 0003 | 42 | 3 | 75 MuSR: Testing the Limits of Chain-of-thought with Multistep Soft Reasoning (2024) Reasoning Evaluation and Benchmarks 75 SatLM: Satisfiability-Aided Language Models Using Declarative Prompting (2023) Reasoning Evaluation and Benchmarks |
|
| 11 | Ben Liu 0002 | 41 | 3 | 68 SymAgent: A Neural-Symbolic Self-Learning Agent Framework for Complex Reasoning over Knowledge Graphs (2025) Reasoning Evaluation and Benchmarks 56 MoodAngels: A Retrieval-augmented Multi-agent Framework for Psychiatry Diagnosis (2025) RAG for Domain Applications |
|
| 12 | Archiki Prasad | 40 | 3 | 75 ReCEval: Evaluating Reasoning Chains via Correctness and Informativeness (2023) Reasoning Evaluation and Benchmarks 61 MAgICoRe: Multi-Agent, Iterative, Coarse-to-Fine Refinement for Reasoning (2025) Reward Modeling and Process Supervision |
|
| 13 | Keqin Bao | 39 | 3 | 87 Teaching Language Models to Reason with Tools (2025) Reasoning Evaluation and Benchmarks 75 MTR-Bench: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Multi-Turn Reasoning Evaluation (2026) Reasoning Evaluation and Benchmarks |
|
| 14 | Ori Yoran | 39 | 3 | 87 AssistantBench: Can Web Agents Solve Realistic and Time-Consuming Tasks? (2024) Reasoning Evaluation and Benchmarks 41 Answering Questions by Meta-Reasoning over Multiple Chains of Thought (2023) Reasoning-Intensive Retrieval and Ranking |
|
| 15 | Yong Li 0004 | 37 | 3 | 75 ProBench: Benchmarking GUI Agents with Accurate Process Information (2026) Reasoning Evaluation and Benchmarks 59 PG-Agent: An Agent Powered by Page Graph (2025) Multi-Agent and Tool-Use Orchestration |
|
| 16 | Qisheng Hu | 36 | 3 | 55 Coordinating Search-Informed Reasoning and Reasoning-Guided Search in Claim Verification (2026) Automated Fact Checking and Claim Verification 35 Just What You Desire: Constrained Timeline Summarization with Self-Reflection for Enhanced Relevance (2025) Multi-hop and Complex Reasoning QA |
|
| 17 | Weiwei Sun 0001 COI: co-author | 36 | 3 | 75 Improving Retrieval-Augmented Generation through Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (2025) Agentic and Deep Search RAG 45 ReasonRank: Empowering Passage Ranking with Strong Reasoning Ability (2026) LLM-Based Reranking |
|
| 18 | Chen Zhao 0013 | 36 | 3 | 73 Beyond Single-shot Writing: Deep Research Agents are Unreliable at Multi-turn Report Revision (2026) Deep Research and Report Generation 49 Rethinking Reasoning-Intensive Retrieval: Evaluating and Advancing Retrievers in Agentic Search Systems (2026) Reasoning-Intensive Retrieval and Ranking |
|
| 19 | Wenlin Zhang 0001 | 36 | 3 | 56 Process vs. Outcome Reward: Which is Better for Agentic RAG Reinforcement Learning (2025) Agentic and Deep Search RAG 55 To Search or Not to Search: Aligning the Decision Boundary of Deep Search Agents via Causal Intervention (2026) Agentic and Deep Search RAG |
|
| 20 | Daiting Shi COI: co-author | 36 | 3 | 60 Reinforced Efficient Reasoning via Semantically Diverse Exploration (2026) RL Training of Search Agents 49 ConsistRM: Improving Generative Reward Models via Consistency-Aware Self-Training (2026) Reward Modeling and Process Supervision |
|
| 21 | Qinggang Zhang | 35 | 3 | 62 LoSemB: Logic-Guided Semantic Bridging for Inductive Tool Retrieval (2026) Reasoning Evaluation and Benchmarks 36 Cost-efficient Knowledge-based Question Answering with Large Language Models (2024) Multi-hop and Complex Reasoning QA |
|
| 22 | Mariano Barone | 35 | 3 | 54 SOLVE-Med: Specialized Orchestration for Leading Vertical Experts Across Medical Specialties (2025) Retrieval-Augmented and Open-Domain QA 35 Combating Biomedical Misinformation through Multi-modal Claim Detection and Evidence-based Verification (2025) RAG for Domain Applications |
|
| 24 | Weizhou Shen | 35 | 3 | 87 Small LLMs Are Weak Tool Learners: A Multi-LLM Agent (2024) Reasoning Evaluation and Benchmarks 64 Mobile-Agent-v2: Mobile Device Operation Assistant with Effective Navigation via Multi-Agent Collaboration (2024) Multi-Agent and Tool-Use Orchestration |
|
| 25 | Jiapu Wang | 34 | 3 | 54 Large Language Models-guided Dynamic Adaptation for Temporal Knowledge Graph Reasoning (2024) RL Training of Search Agents 37 Decomposing and Revising What Language Models Generate (2025) Multi-Hop and Iterative Retrieval Reasoning |
|
| 26 | Yingyi Zhang 0001 | 34 | 3 | 62 To Search or Not to Search: Aligning the Decision Boundary of Deep Search Agents via Causal Intervention (2026) Agentic and Deep Search RAG 56 Process vs. Outcome Reward: Which is Better for Agentic RAG Reinforcement Learning (2025) Agentic and Deep Search RAG |
|
| 27 | Armin Toroghi | 34 | 3 | 37 LLM-based Typed Hyperresolution for Commonsense Reasoning with Knowledge Bases (2025) KG-Augmented LLM Reasoning 37 Verifiable, Debuggable, and Repairable Commonsense Logical Reasoning via LLM-based Theory Resolution (2024) KG-Augmented LLM Reasoning |
|
| 28 | Weipeng Chen COI: co-author | 34 | 3 | 75 Facilitating Multi-turn Function Calling for LLMs via Compositional Instruction Tuning (2025) Reasoning Evaluation and Benchmarks 60 ReSearch: Learning to Reason with Search for LLMs via Reinforcement Learning (2025) RL Training of Search Agents |
|
| 29 | Nancy F. Chen | 34 | 3 | 64 Multi-expert Prompting Improves Reliability, Safety and Usefulness of Large Language Models (2024) Multi-Agent and Tool-Use Orchestration 49 AdaMCoT: Rethinking Cross-Lingual Factual Reasoning Through Adaptive Multilingual Chain-of-Thought (2026) Reward Modeling and Process Supervision |
|
| 30 | Yongqi Li 0001 | 34 | 3 | 49 Parallel Test-Time Scaling for Latent Reasoning Models (2026) Reward Modeling and Process Supervision 49 TokenSkip: Controllable Chain-of-Thought Compression in LLMs (2025) Reward Modeling and Process Supervision |
|
| 31 | Yuanzhao Zhai | 34 | 3 | 61 Empowering Large Language Model Agent through Step-Level Self-Critique and Self-Training (2025) Reward Modeling and Process Supervision 61 Enhancing Decision-Making for LLM Agents via Step-Level Q-Value Models (2025) Reward Modeling and Process Supervision |
|
| 32 | Xingyu Tan 0001 | 33 | 3 | 36 HydraRAG: Structured Cross-Source Enhanced Large Language Model Reasoning (2025) KG-Augmented LLM Reasoning 36 Paths-over-Graph: Knowledge Graph Empowered Large Language Model Reasoning (2025) KG-Augmented LLM Reasoning |
|
| 33 | Weizhi Xu 0002 | 33 | 3 | 32 Heterogeneous Graph Reasoning for Fact Checking over Texts and Tables (2024) Automated Fact Checking and Claim Verification 32 Adversarial Contrastive Learning for Evidence-Aware Fake News Detection With Graph Neural Networks (2024) Automated Fact Checking and Claim Verification |