Tag-Instruct: Controlled Instruction Complexity Enhancement through Structure-based Augmentation

AbstractHigh-quality instruction data is crucial for developing large language models (LLMs), yet existing approaches struggle to effectively control instruction complexity. We present Tag-Instruct, a novel framework that enhances instruction complexity through structured semantic compression and controlled difficulty augmentation. Unlike previous prompt-based methods operating on raw text, Tag-Instruct compresses instructions into a compact tag space and systematically enhances complexity through RL-guided tag expansion. Through extensive experiments, we show that Tag-Instruct outperforms existing instruction complexity augmentation approaches. Our analysis reveals that operating in tag space provides superior controllability and stability across different instruction synthesis frameworks.