[Submitted on 18 Jan 2026]
[View PDF](/pdf/2601.12538)
[HTML (experimental)](https://arxiv.org/html/2601.12538v1)
Abstract:Reasoning is a fundamental cognitive process underlying inference, problem-solving, and decision-making. While large language models (LLMs) demonstrate strong reasoning capabilities in closed-world settings, they struggle in open-ended and dynamic environments. Agentic reasoning marks a paradigm shift by reframing LLMs as autonomous agents that plan, act, and learn through continual interaction. In this survey, we organize agentic reasoning along three complementary dimensions. First, we characterize environmental dynamics through three layers: foundational agentic reasoning, which establishes core single-agent capabilities including planning, tool use, and search in stable environments; self-evolving agentic reasoning, which studies how agents refine these capabilities through feedback, memory, and adaptation; and collective multi-agent reasoning, which extends intelligence to collaborative settings involving coordination, knowledge sharing, and shared goals. Across these layers, we distinguish in-context reasoning, which scales test-time interaction through structured orchestration, from post-training reasoning, which optimizes behaviors via reinforcement learning and supervised fine-tuning. We further review representative agentic reasoning frameworks across real-world applications and benchmarks, including science, robotics, healthcare, autonomous research, and mathematics. This survey synthesizes agentic reasoning methods into a unified roadmap bridging thought and action, and outlines open challenges and future directions, including personalization, long-horizon interaction, world modeling, scalable multi-agent training, and governance for real-world deployment.
References & Citations
...
Bibliographic Explorer
(What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers
(What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps
(What is Litmaps?) scite Smart Citations
(What are Smart Citations?)# Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv
(What is alphaXiv?) CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers
(What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub
(What is DagsHub?) Gotit.pub
(What is GotitPub?) Hugging Face
(What is Huggingface?) ScienceCast
(What is ScienceCast?)# Demos Influence Flower
(What are Influence Flowers?) CORE Recommender
(What is CORE?)# arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website.
Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them.
Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs.