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arXiv · 2609.24141

CLOOPD: Closing the Learner Loop in On-Policy Distillation

Keye Zheng·Hanyu Li·Zhan Cheng·Yuan Gao
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Abstract

On-policy distillation (OPD) pays twice for each fresh batch: the student generates trajectories and a stronger teacher scores them. Existing methods improve which trajectories are scored and how the teacher signal is constructed, but usually consume it with one actor update. We introduce CLOOPD, a closed-loop framework separating teacher-signal acquisition from student-side realization. CLOOPD selects an adaptive $α$ waypoint inside a KL envelope, freezes the scored batch and its advantages, re-forwards the student after each actor pass, measures realization, and allocates actor work under a separate token budget. The framework includes deterministic two- and three-pass policies, token-priced CLOOPD-TPMR, and a budget-matched control. Across six 300-step runs on an 8-H20 node, every CLOOPD policy improves the one-pass TOP-D anchor at comparable teacher-token scale: macro accuracy rises from 15.41 to 17.78 with CLOOPD-Fixed2 and 19.36 with CLOOPD-Fixed3. At step 100, CLOOPD-Fixed3 reaches 15.35, nearly matching TOP-D at step 300 while using 67.2% fewer teacher-scored tokens and 28.0% fewer GPU-hours. Earlier 8-A100 ablations show adaptive $α$ eliminates observed trust-envelope violations; a third pass adds headroom. These results position CLOOPD as a framework for budgeting how fully students learn from teacher-scored tokens.

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Keye Zheng, Hanyu Li, Zhan Cheng, Yuan Gao. 2026-09-21. CLOOPD: Closing the Learner Loop in On-Policy Distillation. https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.24141

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