FlexMARL: Graph-Driven Rollout-Training Co-Design for LLM-Based Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning

arXiv:2602.09578v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Despite algorithm-level innovations for multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL), the underlying infrastructure for large-scale MARL remains underexplored. Existing training frameworks primarily optimize for single-agent scenarios and fail to capture the graph-structured nature of MARL. This fundamental mismatch leads to three MARL-specific challenges: topology-induced rollout skew, critical path synchronization barriers, and dynamic training demand. To bridge this gap, we propose FlexMARL, a graph-driven rollout-training co-designed framework for large-scale LLM-based MARL. FlexMARL introduces the multi-agent execution graph (MEG) and materializes the intermediate representation as the MEG Store, which provides decentralized multi-table storage and serves as the data hub for system components. Built around the MEG Store, the Rollout Engine develops dependency parallel sampling with hierarchical load balancing, which reduces inference latency and balances intra-agent/inter-agent loads. The Joint Orchestrator exploits an agent-level asynchronous pipeline to mitigate the critical path synchronization barriers while maintaining consistency. The Training Engine achieves on-demand resource allocation by collectively managing training processes for individual agents. The training states of different agents are swapped via location-agnostic communication APIs. Empirical results on a production cluster demonstrate that FlexMARL achieves up to 7.3x speedup and improves hardware utilization by up to 5.6x compared to existing frameworks.