diff --git a/nemo_rl/data/llm_message_utils.py b/nemo_rl/data/llm_message_utils.py
index 29840b2b8d..a28c796fae 100644
--- a/nemo_rl/data/llm_message_utils.py
+++ b/nemo_rl/data/llm_message_utils.py
@@ -426,6 +426,26 @@ def get_first_index_that_differs(str1: str, str2: str) -> int:
     return min(len(str1), len(str2))
 
 
+def _get_longest_suffix_prefix_overlap(prev: str, cur: str) -> int:
+    """Find max overlap where suffix(prev) == prefix(cur)."""
+    max_overlap = min(len(prev), len(cur))
+    for k in range(max_overlap, 0, -1):
+        if prev[-k:] == cur[:k]:
+            return k
+    return 0
+
+
+def _get_longest_token_suffix_prefix_overlap(
+    prev_ids: list[int], cur_ids: list[int]
+) -> int:
+    """Find max overlap where suffix(prev_ids) == prefix(cur_ids)."""
+    max_overlap = min(len(prev_ids), len(cur_ids))
+    for k in range(max_overlap, 0, -1):
+        if prev_ids[-k:] == cur_ids[:k]:
+            return k
+    return 0
+
+
 def get_formatted_message_log(
     message_log: LLMMessageLogType,
     tokenizer: TokenizerType,
@@ -452,6 +472,8 @@ def get_formatted_message_log(
     """
     new_message_log: LLMMessageLogType = []
     prev_formatted_message = ""
+    accumulated_text = ""
+    accumulated_token_ids: list[int] = []
     message_log_strs: list[dict[str, str]] = cast(
         list[dict[str, str]], message_log
     )  # we just use the str:str parts here
@@ -537,8 +559,12 @@ def _format_content_helper(
             formatted_message,
         )
 
-        ## pull out the chunk corresponding to the current message
-        message_chunk = formatted_message[prev_message_len_no_eos:]
+        # Drop overlap with already-emitted text (for non-monotonic templates).
+        raw_message_chunk = formatted_message[prev_message_len_no_eos:]
+        overlap = _get_longest_suffix_prefix_overlap(
+            accumulated_text, raw_message_chunk
+        )
+        message_chunk = raw_message_chunk[overlap:]
 
         # Debug: Print each message turn separately
         if debug:
@@ -600,9 +626,22 @@ def _format_content_helper(
         new_message = message.copy()
         # extend this if statement to check for all(len(modality)) == 0 when adding other modalities
         if len(media_cur_message) == 0:
-            new_message["token_ids"] = tokenizer(
-                text=message_chunk, return_tensors="pt", add_special_tokens=False
+            # Tokenize in accumulated context, then keep only newly appended ids.
+            context_text = accumulated_text + message_chunk
+            context_ids = tokenizer(
+                text=context_text, return_tensors="pt", add_special_tokens=False
             )["input_ids"][0]
+            context_ids_list = cast(list[int], context_ids.tolist())
+            token_overlap = _get_longest_token_suffix_prefix_overlap(
+                accumulated_token_ids, context_ids_list
+            )
+            new_ids = context_ids_list[token_overlap:]
+            new_message["token_ids"] = torch.tensor(
+                new_ids,
+                dtype=context_ids.dtype,
+                device=context_ids.device,
+            )
+            accumulated_token_ids = context_ids_list
         else:
             # extend the else statement to add other modalities (in this case, tokenizer will be a processor)
             media_kwargs = {}
@@ -661,6 +700,7 @@ def _format_content_helper(
                     new_message["content"].append(item)
 
         new_message_log.append(new_message)
+        accumulated_text += message_chunk
         prev_formatted_message = formatted_message
 
     return new_message_log
diff --git a/tests/unit/data/test_llm_message_utils.py b/tests/unit/data/test_llm_message_utils.py
index b39f117593..2f9cde5896 100644
--- a/tests/unit/data/test_llm_message_utils.py
+++ b/tests/unit/data/test_llm_message_utils.py
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
 # limitations under the License.
 
 
-from typing import Any, Callable
+from typing import Any, Callable, cast
 
 import pytest
 import torch
@@ -697,6 +697,106 @@ def test_get_first_index_that_differs():
     assert get_first_index_that_differs("hello2", "hi1") == 1
 
 
+class _DummyReasoningTokenizer:
+    """Minimal tokenizer to reproduce #2821/#2844 behaviors in unit tests."""
+
+    bos_token = None
+    eos_token = "</s>"
+
+    def apply_chat_template(
+        self,
+        messages,
+        add_generation_prompt=False,
+        tokenize=False,
+        add_special_tokens=False,
+        **kwargs,
+    ):
+        assert not tokenize
+        out = ""
+        for idx, m in enumerate(messages):
+            role = m["role"]
+            content = m["content"]
+            if role == "user":
+                out += f"<|user|>{content}"
+            elif role == "assistant":
+                # Keep <think> only on latest assistant turn (#2821 repro).
+                if idx == len(messages) - 1:
+                    out += f"<|assistant|>{content}"
+                else:
+                    out += f"<|assistant|>{content.replace('<think></think>', '')}"
+
+        if add_generation_prompt:
+            out += "<|assistant|>\n"
+        return out
+
+    def _encode(self, text: str) -> list[int]:
+        # Toy sentencepiece behavior for #2844 repro:
+        # standalone "The" -> 900, in-context "\nThe" -> 901
+        ids: list[int] = []
+        i = 0
+        while i < len(text):
+            if i == 0 and text.startswith("The", i):
+                ids.append(900)
+                i += 3
+                continue
+            if text.startswith("\nThe", i):
+                ids.append(10)  # '\n'
+                ids.append(901)
+                i += 4
+                continue
+            ids.append(ord(text[i]) + 1000)
+            i += 1
+        return ids
+
+    def __call__(self, text, return_tensors="pt", add_special_tokens=False, **kwargs):
+        ids = self._encode(text)
+        return {"input_ids": torch.tensor([ids], dtype=torch.long)}
+
+
+def test_get_formatted_message_log_no_duplication_for_non_monotonic_reasoning_template():
+    tokenizer = _DummyReasoningTokenizer()
+    task_data_spec = TaskDataSpec(task_name="test")
+    msgs = [
+        {"role": "user", "content": "q1"},
+        {"role": "assistant", "content": "<think></think>ANSWER1"},
+        {"role": "user", "content": "q2"},
+        {"role": "assistant", "content": "<think></think>ANSWER2"},
+    ]
+
+    out = get_formatted_message_log(
+        msgs,
+        tokenizer,
+        task_data_spec,
+        add_bos_token=False,
+        add_eos_token=False,
+        add_generation_prompt=False,
+    )
+    full = "".join(cast(str, m["content"]) for m in out)
+    assert full.count("ANSWER1") == 1
+    assert full.count("ANSWER2") == 1
+
+
+def test_get_formatted_message_log_uses_context_tokenization_for_assistant_leading_token():
+    tokenizer = _DummyReasoningTokenizer()
+    task_data_spec = TaskDataSpec(task_name="test")
+    msgs = [
+        {"role": "user", "content": "What is 6 times 7?"},
+        {"role": "assistant", "content": "The answer is 42."},
+    ]
+
+    out = get_formatted_message_log(
+        msgs,
+        tokenizer,
+        task_data_spec,
+        add_bos_token=False,
+        add_eos_token=False,
+        add_generation_prompt=True,
+    )
+    assistant_ids = cast(torch.Tensor, out[-1]["token_ids"])
+    # Must use in-context token (901), not standalone chunk token (900).
+    assert assistant_ids[0].item() == 901
+
+
 def test_message_log_to_flat_messages_with_packed_images() -> None:
     from nemo_rl.data.multimodal_utils import PackedTensor