Compositional Behavioral Semantics for State Abstraction in Reinforcement Learning

Yivan Zhang, Ziyan Luo, Manuel Baltieri
Proceedings of the 43rd International Conference on Machine Learning, PMLR 306:157468-157507, 2026.

Abstract

State abstraction plays a key role in scaling reinforcement learning to complex but structured systems. In studying such systems, a wide range of behavioral structures have been studied in reinforcement learning, including value functions, invariants, bisimulation relations, and behavioral metrics. However, a general principle for determining what structures are provably preserved under state abstraction is still lacking. In this paper, we present a unified framework for defining and analyzing behavioral structures in reinforcement learning. Our framework provides a compositional way to specify behavioral semantics based on local, one-step descriptions of system dynamics. Using this framework, we establish results showing how behavioral structures can be safely transferred between abstract and concrete systems. We further show how to construct quantitative metrics from logical behavioral semantics with soundness guarantees. Together, these results provide a principled foundation for reasoning about behaviors under state abstraction in reinforcement learning and offer reusable definition and proof principles for a broad class of behavioral structures in reinforcement learning.

Cite this Paper


BibTeX
@InProceedings{pmlr-v306-zhang26dy, title = {Compositional Behavioral Semantics for State Abstraction in Reinforcement Learning}, author = {Zhang, Yivan and Luo, Ziyan and Baltieri, Manuel}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 43rd International Conference on Machine Learning}, pages = {157468--157507}, year = {2026}, editor = {Zhang, Tong and Dudik, Miroslav and Jaggi, Martin and Agarwal, Alekh and Li, Sharon and Schuurmans, Dale and Zhu, Jerry and Berkenkamp, Felix and Dong, Hanze and Bietti, Alberto}, volume = {306}, series = {Proceedings of Machine Learning Research}, month = {06--11 Jul}, publisher = {PMLR}, pdf = {https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mlresearch/v306/main/assets/zhang26dy/zhang26dy.pdf}, url = {https://proceedings.mlr.press/v306/zhang26dy.html}, abstract = {State abstraction plays a key role in scaling reinforcement learning to complex but structured systems. In studying such systems, a wide range of behavioral structures have been studied in reinforcement learning, including value functions, invariants, bisimulation relations, and behavioral metrics. However, a general principle for determining what structures are provably preserved under state abstraction is still lacking. In this paper, we present a unified framework for defining and analyzing behavioral structures in reinforcement learning. Our framework provides a compositional way to specify behavioral semantics based on local, one-step descriptions of system dynamics. Using this framework, we establish results showing how behavioral structures can be safely transferred between abstract and concrete systems. We further show how to construct quantitative metrics from logical behavioral semantics with soundness guarantees. Together, these results provide a principled foundation for reasoning about behaviors under state abstraction in reinforcement learning and offer reusable definition and proof principles for a broad class of behavioral structures in reinforcement learning.} }
Endnote
%0 Conference Paper %T Compositional Behavioral Semantics for State Abstraction in Reinforcement Learning %A Yivan Zhang %A Ziyan Luo %A Manuel Baltieri %B Proceedings of the 43rd International Conference on Machine Learning %C Proceedings of Machine Learning Research %D 2026 %E Tong Zhang %E Miroslav Dudik %E Martin Jaggi %E Alekh Agarwal %E Sharon Li %E Dale Schuurmans %E Jerry Zhu %E Felix Berkenkamp %E Hanze Dong %E Alberto Bietti %F pmlr-v306-zhang26dy %I PMLR %P 157468--157507 %U https://proceedings.mlr.press/v306/zhang26dy.html %V 306 %X State abstraction plays a key role in scaling reinforcement learning to complex but structured systems. In studying such systems, a wide range of behavioral structures have been studied in reinforcement learning, including value functions, invariants, bisimulation relations, and behavioral metrics. However, a general principle for determining what structures are provably preserved under state abstraction is still lacking. In this paper, we present a unified framework for defining and analyzing behavioral structures in reinforcement learning. Our framework provides a compositional way to specify behavioral semantics based on local, one-step descriptions of system dynamics. Using this framework, we establish results showing how behavioral structures can be safely transferred between abstract and concrete systems. We further show how to construct quantitative metrics from logical behavioral semantics with soundness guarantees. Together, these results provide a principled foundation for reasoning about behaviors under state abstraction in reinforcement learning and offer reusable definition and proof principles for a broad class of behavioral structures in reinforcement learning.
APA
Zhang, Y., Luo, Z. & Baltieri, M.. (2026). Compositional Behavioral Semantics for State Abstraction in Reinforcement Learning. Proceedings of the 43rd International Conference on Machine Learning, in Proceedings of Machine Learning Research 306:157468-157507 Available from https://proceedings.mlr.press/v306/zhang26dy.html.

Related Material