LM-GRASP: Instance-Specific Language Models for Combinatorial Construction via Online Imitation Learning

Abstract

Machine learning for combinatorial optimization typically relies on neural constructors trained via reinforcement learning on large offline datasets for a fixed problem class-incurring high pretraining costs and generalizing poorly outside the training distribution. We propose an alternative: a metaheuristic framework that reformulates the randomized constructive phase of GRASP as an online imitation learning task, trained from scratch on each problem instance. A local search procedure acts as an expert oracle, while a decoder-only Transformer serves as the constructive policy. Unlike classical GRASP, which relies on static, myopic heuristic rules based on localized scalar costs, our approach is fully data-driven: the construction policy emerges from high-quality solutions discovered during the search itself, with no problem-specific feature engineering required. We instantiate this as LM-GRASP, a hybrid metaheuristic following an iterative learn-infer-improve cycle, training the policy online via behavioral cloning on a dynamic archive of elite trajectories-no external data or offline pretraining needed. The pipeline interfaces with the domain solely through the objective evaluator used by local search. Evaluated on the Taillard PFSP benchmark (ta51-ta60), the most discriminating block due to half its optima being unknown, LM-GRASP outperforms GPU-GRASP by 28.4 makespan units on average-comparable to the gain from GPU acceleration over sequential execution (27.2 units), though with overlapping standard deviations. This suggests instance-specific, online-trained language models are a promising, practical alternative to hand-engineered constructors, especially for landscapes resistant to classical greedy construction.