Robotic Ultra-Long-Horizon Manipulation Skills via Human-guided Lifelong Code Generation

arXiv:2509.18597v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) can translate natural-language instructions for robotic manipulation into executable code, but ambiguity, noisy generations, and limited context windows make ultra-long-horizon tasks unreliable. Closed-loop approaches that rely only on LLM feedback also struggle because LLMs have limited robotic reasoning, even when task errors are obvious to humans. Feedback is often stored in representations that generalize poorly to unseen tasks and can cause catastrophic forgetting as new corrections accumulate. We propose LYRA, a human-guided lifelong skill learning and code generation framework that distills human feedback into modular, reusable skills and incrementally extends their functionality across successive interactions while preserving previously learned behavior. External memory stores learned skills and execution examples; retrieval-augmented generation selects relevant knowledge, while user hints guide reuse when retrieval is insufficient, supporting ultra-long-horizon execution. Experiments on Ravens, Franka Kitchen, LIBERO-long, MetaWorld, and real-world tasks show a 0.93 success rate, up to 27\% higher than baselines, and a 42\% improvement in correction efficiency. LYRA also robustly solves ``build a house'', which requires planning over 20 primitives.

Abstract:Large language models (LLMs) can translate natural-language instructions for robotic manipulation into executable code, but ambiguity, noisy generations, and limited context windows make ultra-long-horizon tasks unreliable. Closed-loop approaches that rely only on LLM feedback also struggle because LLMs have limited robotic reasoning, even when task errors are obvious to humans. Feedback is often stored in representations that generalize poorly to unseen tasks and can cause catastrophic forgetting as new corrections accumulate. We propose LYRA, a human-guided lifelong skill learning and code generation framework that distills human feedback into modular, reusable skills and incrementally extends their functionality across successive interactions while preserving previously learned behavior. External memory stores learned skills and execution examples; retrieval-augmented generation selects relevant knowledge, while user hints guide reuse when retrieval is insufficient, supporting ultra-long-horizon execution. Experiments on Ravens, Franka Kitchen, LIBERO-long, MetaWorld, and real-world tasks show a 0.93 success rate, up to 27\% higher than baselines, and a 42\% improvement in correction efficiency. LYRA also robustly solves ``build a house'', which requires planning over 20 primitives.

final submission RA-L 2026.09

Robotics (cs.RO)

arXiv:2509.18597 [cs.RO]

(or arXiv:2509.18597v3 [cs.RO] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2509.18597 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite

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Robotic Ultra-Long-Horizon Manipulation Skills via Human-guided Lifelong Code Generation

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