README.md

Reinforcement Learning using Graph Neural Networks

This is the companion repository to the blogpost containing an introduction to using Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) in Reinforcement Learning (RL) architectures. We provide an implementation of a custom PPO policy, compatible with the Stable Baselines3 library, based on graph neural networks implemented using PyTorch Geometric.

If you use this code, please consider citing our blogpost:

@inproceedings{schutz2026rlwithgnns,
  title={Using Graph Neural Networks in Reinforcement Learning: A Practical Guide},
  author={Schutz, Alex and Darvariu, Victor-Alexandru},
  booktitle = {International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR) 2026 Blogpost Track},
  year={2026},
  url = {https://iclr-blogposts.github.io/2026/blog/2026/rl-with-gnns/}
}

Installation

To install the required dependencies, run:

uv sync

Or use your preferred method to install the packages listed in pyproject.toml.

Usage

To train an RL agent using GNNs, run the train.py script:

python train.py

This will train an agent on the MVC environment using a GNN-based policy. To visualise the training output, launch TensorBoard:

tensorboard --logdir runs/

Customisation

To update the GNN architecture used in the policy, modify the network_kwargs in the train.py configuration section. For example, to use a GraphSAGE network with 3 layers, you can set:

"network_kwargs": {"network": "GraphSAGE", "num_layers": 3},

You can also test with a different environment by changing the env parameter in the config. Available environments include MVCEnv-v0, and TSPEnv-v0. At this stage, the GCN and GraphSAGE networks do not support edge features, so they will not work on the TSP environment.

This repo is provided as a starting point for experimenting with GNNs in RL. Please feel free to experiment by adding new architectures, environments, or training algorithms!