English

Beyond Single-Shot: Multi-step Tool Retrieval via Query Planning

Computation and Language 2026-01-13 v1 Artificial Intelligence Information Retrieval

Abstract

LLM agents operating over massive, dynamic tool libraries rely on effective retrieval, yet standard single-shot dense retrievers struggle with complex requests. These failures primarily stem from the disconnect between abstract user goals and technical documentation, and the limited capacity of fixed-size embeddings to model combinatorial tool compositions. To address these challenges, we propose TOOLQP, a lightweight framework that models retrieval as iterative query planning. Instead of single-shot matching, TOOLQP decomposes instructions into sub-tasks and dynamically generates queries to interact with the retriever, effectively bridging the semantic gap by targeting the specific sub-tasks required for composition. We train TOOLQP using synthetic query trajectories followed by optimization via Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Rewards (RLVR). Experiments demonstrate that TOOLQP achieves state-of-the-art performance, exhibiting superior zero-shot generalization, robustness across diverse retrievers, and significant improvements in downstream agentic execution.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2601.07782,
  title  = {Beyond Single-Shot: Multi-step Tool Retrieval via Query Planning},
  author = {Wei Fang and James Glass},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.07782},
  year   = {2026}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T09:01:10.870Z