grpo-rl-traininglisted
Install: claude install-skill Jensen-Yao/agents-skills
# GRPO/RL Training with TRL
Expert-level guidance for implementing Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO) using the Transformer Reinforcement Learning (TRL) library. This skill provides battle-tested patterns, critical insights, and production-ready workflows for fine-tuning language models with custom reward functions.
## When to Use This Skill
Use GRPO training when you need to:
- **Enforce specific output formats** (e.g., XML tags, JSON, structured reasoning)
- **Teach verifiable tasks** with objective correctness metrics (math, coding, fact-checking)
- **Improve reasoning capabilities** by rewarding chain-of-thought patterns
- **Align models to domain-specific behaviors** without labeled preference data
- **Optimize for multiple objectives** simultaneously (format + correctness + style)
**Do NOT use GRPO for:**
- Simple supervised fine-tuning tasks (use SFT instead)
- Tasks without clear reward signals
- When you already have high-quality preference pairs (use DPO/PPO instead)
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## Core Concepts
### 1. GRPO Algorithm Fundamentals
**Key Mechanism:**
- Generates **multiple completions** for each prompt (group size: 4-16)
- Compares completions within each group using reward functions
- Updates policy to favor higher-rewarded responses relative to the group
**Critical Difference from PPO:**
- No separate reward model needed
- More sample-efficient (learns from within-group comparisons)
- Simpler to implement and debug
**Mathematical Intuition:**
```
For each p