@inproceedings{li-etal-2026-got,
title = "{G}o{T}-R1: Internalizing Graph-of-Thought via Structural Reinforcement for High-Density Reasoning",
author = "Li, Zuchao and
Li, Qiwei and
Yao, Yao and
Zhao, Hai and
Zhang, Lefei and
Du, Bo",
editor = "Liakata, Maria and
Moreira, Viviane P. and
Zhang, Jiajun and
Jurgens, David",
booktitle = "Findings of the {A}ssociation for {C}omputational {L}inguistics: {ACL} 2026",
month = jul,
year = "2026",
address = "San Diego, California, United States",
publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
url = "https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-acl.352/",
pages = "7090--7104",
ISBN = "979-8-89176-395-1",
abstract = "Chain-of-Thought (CoT) reasoning, while effective, suffers from an inherent mechanism flaw: linearity induces overthinking. Constrained by sequential generation, models often produce redundant narration and circular self-corrections to maintain logical context. We propose GoT-R1, a framework that fundamentally mitigates this by replacing verbose linear trajectories with high-density reasoning graphs. Unlike CoT, GoT-R1 decouples logic from narration, modeling deliberation as a structured topology of atomic units. We internalize this inductive bias via a two-stage regimen: synthesizing structural data to distill logical skeletons, followed by Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO) to explicitly reinforce topological integrity. Extensive evaluations across mathematical reasoning and instruction following demonstrate that GoT-R1 consistently outperforms state-of-the-art baselines. Crucially, it achieves these gains with significantly reduced token overhead, demonstrating that structured reasoning density offers a more robust and parsimonious alternative to the recursive verbosity of standard CoT. The GoT-R1 models are open-sourced on Hugging Face at: https://huggingface.co/collections/MYTH-Lab/got-r1."
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<abstract>Chain-of-Thought (CoT) reasoning, while effective, suffers from an inherent mechanism flaw: linearity induces overthinking. Constrained by sequential generation, models often produce redundant narration and circular self-corrections to maintain logical context. We propose GoT-R1, a framework that fundamentally mitigates this by replacing verbose linear trajectories with high-density reasoning graphs. Unlike CoT, GoT-R1 decouples logic from narration, modeling deliberation as a structured topology of atomic units. We internalize this inductive bias via a two-stage regimen: synthesizing structural data to distill logical skeletons, followed by Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO) to explicitly reinforce topological integrity. Extensive evaluations across mathematical reasoning and instruction following demonstrate that GoT-R1 consistently outperforms state-of-the-art baselines. Crucially, it achieves these gains with significantly reduced token overhead, demonstrating that structured reasoning density offers a more robust and parsimonious alternative to the recursive verbosity of standard CoT. The GoT-R1 models are open-sourced on Hugging Face at: https://huggingface.co/collections/MYTH-Lab/got-r1.</abstract>
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%0 Conference Proceedings
%T GoT-R1: Internalizing Graph-of-Thought via Structural Reinforcement for High-Density Reasoning
%A Li, Zuchao
%A Li, Qiwei
%A Yao, Yao
%A Zhao, Hai
%A Zhang, Lefei
%A Du, Bo
%Y Liakata, Maria
%Y Moreira, Viviane P.
%Y Zhang, Jiajun
%Y Jurgens, David
%S Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: ACL 2026
%D 2026
%8 July
%I Association for Computational Linguistics
%C San Diego, California, United States
%@ 979-8-89176-395-1
%F li-etal-2026-got
%X Chain-of-Thought (CoT) reasoning, while effective, suffers from an inherent mechanism flaw: linearity induces overthinking. Constrained by sequential generation, models often produce redundant narration and circular self-corrections to maintain logical context. We propose GoT-R1, a framework that fundamentally mitigates this by replacing verbose linear trajectories with high-density reasoning graphs. Unlike CoT, GoT-R1 decouples logic from narration, modeling deliberation as a structured topology of atomic units. We internalize this inductive bias via a two-stage regimen: synthesizing structural data to distill logical skeletons, followed by Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO) to explicitly reinforce topological integrity. Extensive evaluations across mathematical reasoning and instruction following demonstrate that GoT-R1 consistently outperforms state-of-the-art baselines. Crucially, it achieves these gains with significantly reduced token overhead, demonstrating that structured reasoning density offers a more robust and parsimonious alternative to the recursive verbosity of standard CoT. The GoT-R1 models are open-sourced on Hugging Face at: https://huggingface.co/collections/MYTH-Lab/got-r1.
%U https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-acl.352/
%P 7090-7104
Markdown (Informal)
[GoT-R1: Internalizing Graph-of-Thought via Structural Reinforcement for High-Density Reasoning](https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-acl.352/) (Li et al., Findings 2026)
ACL