Reproducibility in Deep RL

Reinforcement learning, particularly deep RL, presents unique challenges when it comes to reproducing experimental results. Even with an understanding of specific algorithms and implementation patterns, ensuring that others (or your future self) can reliably replicate findings is a separate, significant hurdle. The complex relationship between algorithms, implementations, hyperparameters, environments, and even hardware can lead to substantial variability in performance, making direct comparisons between studies difficult. Sources of this irreproducibility are examined, and practical steps are outlined to maximize the replicability of your work.

Sources of Irreproducibility in Deep RL

Achieving identical results in deep RL across different runs or setups is notoriously hard. Several factors contribute to this challenge:

1. Algorithmic Implementation Details: Advanced RL algorithms often have subtle but important implementation details not fully captured in papers. This includes choices like network initialization schemes (e.g., orthogonal initialization), gradient clipping methods, precise calculation of advantages (like GAE parameters $\lambda$ and $\gamma$), or how target networks are updated. Small deviations in these details can significantly alter learning dynamics.

2. Hyperparameter Sensitivity: Deep RL algorithms are often extremely sensitive to hyperparameter choices. Learning rates, discount factors ($\gamma$), entropy regularization coefficients, batch sizes, replay buffer sizes, update frequencies, and network architectures (number of layers, units per layer, activation functions) can all dramatically impact performance. The optimal values often depend heavily on the specific environment and algorithm variant.

3. Environment Stochasticity and Versioning: Even nominally deterministic simulation environments might have subtle variations depending on the simulator version (e.g., MuJoCo, PyBullet) or underlying physics engine updates. Stochastic environments introduce inherent randomness. Furthermore, standard benchmark environments (like those in Gymnasium or Procgen) evolve, so specifying the exact version used is necessary.

4. Software Dependencies: Variations in the versions of core libraries like Python, NumPy, TensorFlow, or PyTorch can introduce subtle numerical differences or behavioral changes that accumulate over training, leading to divergent results.

5. Hardware Variations: While often less pronounced than other factors, differences in hardware (CPU vs. GPU, specific GPU models, precision settings like FP32 vs. FP16) and parallelization strategies can sometimes affect the outcome of floating-point operations and, consequently, training trajectories.

6. Randomness Management: Deep RL involves multiple sources of randomness: environment resets, stochastic environment transitions/rewards, stochastic policies (action sampling), random weight initialization, and random sampling from replay buffers. Inconsistent or incomplete seeding across these sources makes exact replication nearly impossible.

Best Practices for Enhancing Reproducibility

While perfect replication remains challenging, adopting rigorous practices can significantly improve the consistency and trustworthiness of results:

• Comprehensive Reporting: Provide exhaustive details about your experimental setup. This includes:

  • Algorithm: Clearly specify the algorithm used. If it's a modification of a standard algorithm, detail the exact changes. Pseudo-code can be very helpful.
  • Hyperparameters: List all relevant hyperparameters (see point 2 above). Don't omit seemingly minor ones.
  • Network Architecture: Describe the neural network(s) used, including layer types, number of units, activation functions, and initialization methods.
  • Environment: Specify the exact environment name and version (e.g., HalfCheetah-v4 from Gymnasium 0.28.1). Include any modifications or specific reward structures used.
  • Software Stack: List the versions of Python, the primary ML framework (PyTorch/TensorFlow), RL libraries (Stable Baselines3, RLlib), simulation environments (Gymnasium, MuJoCo), and major dependencies like NumPy.
  • Evaluation Protocol: Describe how performance was measured (e.g., average return over the last 10 episodes, evaluated every 10000 steps, averaged over 5 seeds).

• Code Release: The most effective way to ensure reproducibility is to release the source code used for the experiments. Use a version control system like Git and tag the specific version used to generate the reported results. Include scripts for running experiments and generating plots.

• Dependency Management: Capture the exact software environment.

  • Use pip freeze > requirements.txt to list Python package versions.
  • Consider using Conda environment files (environment.yml).
  • For maximum isolation, use Docker containers to encapsulate the entire operating system and software stack.

• Thorough Seeding: Explicitly set and report the random seeds used. Seed all potential sources of randomness:

  • Python's built-in random module.
  • NumPy (np.random.seed()).
  • The deep learning framework (e.g., torch.manual_seed(), tf.random.set_seed()).
  • The environment's action space and observation space sampling, if applicable (env.action_space.seed()).
  • The environment reset function (env.reset(seed=...)).
  • Crucially, run experiments using multiple random seeds (e.g., 3-10) and report aggregated statistics like the mean and standard deviation (or interquartile range) of performance. This provides a much clearer picture of expected performance and variability than a single run.

Performance variation across three different random seeds for the same algorithm and hyperparameter configuration. Reporting aggregated results (e.g., mean ± std. dev.) across seeds is essential for reliable comparison.

• Standardized Benchmarks and Libraries: Whenever possible, use widely accepted benchmark environments and report results using standard metrics. Using well-vetted libraries like Stable Baselines3 or RLlib can help avoid subtle implementation bugs, but remember to report the specific library version and configurations used.

• Ablation Studies: If introducing modifications or specific implementation choices, conduct ablation studies that systematically remove or alter these components to demonstrate their impact on performance. This helps isolate the factors responsible for observed results.

Adhering to these practices requires discipline but is fundamental for building reliable knowledge in the field. It allows researchers to verify findings, compare methods fairly, and confidently build upon previous work. Reproducibility isn't just about correctness; it's about fostering a transparent and cumulative scientific process within the deep RL community.