Efficient Multi-objective Prompt Optimization via Pure-exploration Bandits

Abstract

Prompt engineering has become central to eliciting the capabilities of large language models (LLMs). At its core lies prompt selection - efficiently identifying the most effective prompts. However, most prior investigations overlook a key challenge: the inherently multi-faceted nature of prompt performance, which cannot be captured by a single metric. To fill this gap, we study the multi-objective prompt selection problem under two practical settings: Pareto prompt set recovery and best feasible prompt identification. Casting the problem into the pure-exploration bandits framework, we adapt provably efficient algorithms from multi-objective bandits and further introduce a novel design for best feasible arm identification in structured bandits, with theoretical guarantees on the identification error in the linear case. Extensive experiments across multiple LLMs show that the bandit-based approaches yield significant improvements over baselines, establishing a principled and efficient framework for multi-objective prompt optimization.