README.md

---
license: other
license_name: mixed-permissive
license_link: LICENSE.md
configs:
- config_name: construct
  data_files: data/construct.parquet
- config_name: optimize
  data_files: data/optimize.parquet
tags:
- math
- reinforcement-learning
- rl-environment
- verifiable-rewards
- harbor
size_categories:
- 1K<n<10K
---

# MathConstructOptimize-Envs

**3,577 RL tasks in 142 families where the model must *construct a mathematical object*, graded by a deterministic checker.** There is no answer matching and no LLM judge in the reward path.

Most math RL data asks for a final number. Here the model has to produce the object itself: a colouring, a design, a counterexample, a point configuration, a polynomial. The checker accepts **any** valid object, not a stored answer. The collection has two subsets:

| subset | what the model does | reward | families | tasks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| `construct` | produce any object satisfying stated conditions (a witness) | 1 if valid, else 0 | 80 | 3,464 |
| `optimize` | produce a valid object with the best objective it can (extremal constructions, bound improvement) | 0 if invalid; otherwise 0.1 + 0.9 × progress from a trivial baseline to the best known value | 62 | 113 |

The runnable sandboxed version (one [Harbor](https://github.com/laude-institute/harbor) task directory per row) is in
[`amphora/MathConstructOptimize-Envs-harbor`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/amphora/MathConstructOptimize-Envs-harbor).

## Sources

Tasks are converted from existing generator suites and research-problem repositories. Each checker was re-implemented and hardened; see the list of upstream verifier bugs below.

| source | subset | tier | families | tasks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [RLVE-Gym](https://github.com/Zhiyuan-Zeng/RLVE) | construct | competition | 30 | 1,800 |
| [MathConstraint](https://github.com/vireshpati/Math-Constraint) | construct | competition | 33 | 875 |
| [NPPC](https://github.com/SMU-DIGA/nppc) | construct | competition | 8 | 480 |
| [Reasoning Gym](https://github.com/open-thought/reasoning-gym) | construct | competition | 3 | 180 |
| [AlphaEvolve repository of problems](https://github.com/google-deepmind/alphaevolve_repository_of_problems) | construct + optimize | research (mostly) | 27 | 187 |
| [EinsteinArena](https://einsteinarena.com) | optimize | research | 26 | 28 |
| [FunSearch](https://github.com/google-deepmind/funsearch) | optimize | research | 3 | 15 |
| [Finch / Evolution Fine-Tuning](https://github.com/Open-Galapagos/evolution-fine-tuning) (`erdos_*` tasks) | optimize | research / competition | 12 | 12 |

Construct generators have 4–6 difficulty levels × 10 seeds. Optimize tasks are single research problems, some at several sizes *n*. `families.csv` lists every family with its source, license, domain, `problem_key` and tags.

## Row schema

| column | meaning |
|---|---|
| `task_id` | unique id |
| `subset`, `family`, `problem_key` | task contract, generator family, canonical math problem id (for cross-source dedupe) |
| `domain`, `tier`, `level` | math area, `competition` or `research`, difficulty level |
| `source`, `license` | upstream task and its license |
| `tags` | see below |
| `prompt` | full, self-contained task statement including the required JSON answer schema |
| `instance` | JSON string with the instance data the checker needs |
| `direction`, `baseline`, `best_known` | optimize only: objective direction, trivial-baseline score, best known score |
| `reference_answer`, `reference_reward` | a known valid answer (planted witness or published construction) and its reward; for SFT/debugging, not needed for grading |

## Grading

```python
from datasets import load_dataset
from huggingface_hub import snapshot_download
import sys, json

repo = snapshot_download("amphora/MathConstructOptimize-Envs", repo_type="dataset", allow_patterns=["grade.py", "graders/*"])
sys.path.insert(0, repo)
from grade import grade

ds = load_dataset("amphora/MathConstructOptimize-Envs", "construct", split="train")
row = ds[0]
reward, details = grade(row, json.loads(row["reference_answer"]))   # -> 1.0, {"valid": True}
```

Graders need Python ≥ 3.10 with numpy, scipy, sympy and networkx. Every check runs in under 60 s. Feasibility checks use exact integer or rational arithmetic wherever the problem allows.

The **optimize reward** is `0` for an invalid answer, else `0.1 + 0.9 · clip(progress, 0, 1)`. Progress is linear between `baseline` (a deliberately weak valid construction) and `best_known`. The kissing-number tasks use a log scale of the overlap loss instead. The 0.1 floor for validity keeps GRPO groups from being all-zero, because without it research-level tasks gave no signal in our pilot.

## Tags

| tag | meaning |
|---|---|
| `agentic_trivial` | a solver (CP-SAT, z3, brute force) cracks the top level within seconds, so the task is useful single-turn but weak for sandboxed agents (2,368 tasks) |
| `np_search` | the task is essentially combinatorial search |
| `best_known_uncertain` | `best_known` comes from our own search or an uncited value |
| `ea_under_review` | EinsteinArena marks the problem as under review. We audited each one and included it only when we could make the check sound |
| `unique_answer` | the answer is unique, but it is still verified as a witness (e.g. by expanding a factorization) |
| `float_objective`, `exact_integer`, `exact_rational`, ... | how the objective is computed |

## Reference pass rates (pilot, 66 tasks)

Pilot with 8 single-turn samples and 4 agentic attempts per task (Harbor `terminus-2`, no network):

| model / mode | trivial (≥0.9) | trainable | too hard (≤0.1) |
|---|---|---|---|
| gpt-oss-120b, single-turn | 23 | 23 | 20 |
| gpt-oss-120b, agentic | 33 | 19 | 13 |
| Qwen3-8B, single-turn | 13 | 15 | 38 |
| Qwen3-8B, agentic | 8 | 10 | 47 |

Pass rates vary a lot by model and mode, so filter for your policy. Difficulty levels are monotone within every generator family.

## Upstream verifier bugs found and fixed

Re-implementing the checkers surfaced problems in the source verifiers that an RL policy could exploit:

- **Model output executed as code.** RLVE `integral` (`sympify`) and Reasoning Gym integration (`parse_expr`) evaluate the model's answer as Python, and they also accept an unevaluated `Integral(f, x)`. Our checkers parse through a whitelist syntax tree.
- **Empty answers accepted.** MathConstraint `verify()` lets the solver fill in any variable the answer omits, so `{}` passes.
- **Missing range, length or type checks.**
  - NPPC 3-colouring accepts an all-distinct colouring.
  - Clique and independent set accept a vertex repeated k times.
  - Quadratic congruence accepts x = 0.
  - Several verifiers accept floats or bools.
- **Floating-point feasibility checks.**
  - EinsteinArena circle packing and circles-in-rectangle (the AlphaEvolve seed overlaps by about 1e-16).
  - Heilbronn triangle containment (uses a rounded √3).
  - Finch tolerances that allowed beating the proven 10/3 bound.
  - AlphaEvolve p58 (Erdős–Szekeres): the published 33- and 65-point sets reported as having no convex 7- or 8-gon **do contain one** under exact arithmetic.
- **Checks that are wrong or too weak.**
  - AlphaEvolve spherical designs: the pass test compares a negated error, so it always passes.
  - AlphaEvolve 3D Kakeya ignores tubes that leave its Monte Carlo box.
  - Arithmetic Kakeya "repairs" the submitted distribution before scoring it.
  - The prime-number-theorem constraint was checked on random samples.
  - The uncertainty-principle root scan could miss roots.
- **Wrong or unreachable targets.** Several Finch targets are above a provable maximum, below a known optimum, or infeasible.

## Excluded

- AlphaEvolve problem 6: the notebook's functional differs from the one a construction-checker can certify.
- Problems with no checkable objective (proof-only or meta problems), or no recoverable construction or verifier.
- FunSearch corner-free sets (checker not released).
- Sources without a license.
- Duplicate problem and size pairs across sources (deduplicated by `problem_key`).

## License

Each row carries the license of its source (`license` column): MIT (64 families), CC-BY-4.0 (59), Apache-2.0 (19). Attribution belongs to the original authors of each source listed above. Our packaging, checkers and generators are released under the same terms as the corresponding source.