Knot So Simple: A Minimalistic Environment for Spatial Reasoning

Zizhao Chen, Yoav Artzi

Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 38 (NeurIPS 2025) Datasets and Benchmarks Track

We propose KnotGym, an interactive environment for complex, spatial reasoning and manipulation. KnotGym includes goal-oriented rope manipulation tasks with varying levels of complexity, all requiring acting from pure image observations.Tasks are defined along a clear and quantifiable axis of complexity based on the number of knot crossings, creating a natural generalization test.KnotGym has a simple observation space, allowing for scalable development, yet it highlights core challenges in integrating acute perception, spatial reasoning, and grounded manipulation.We evaluate methods of different classes, including model-based RL, model-predictive control, and chain-of-thought reasoning, and illustrate the challenges KnotGym presents.