arXiv AI

SkillAdam: Stable and Efficient Skill Evolution for Agents

arXiv AI
Oct 1

Rep2Skill: Representation-Guided Skill Self-Evolution for LLM Agents

Rep2Skill introduces a representation-guided framework that enables large language model agents to self-evolve their textual skills by analyzing internal representation trajectories from agent rollouts. The method identifies execution turns that deviate from successful dynamics and uses these signals, together with execution contexts, as actionable feedback for targeted skill revision. Experiments with two open-source LLMs across two agent environments demonstrate that Rep2Skill consistently outperforms purely text-based approaches, showing that incorporating internal representations can enhance agent self-improvement.

By Kaixing Zhang, Changming Li, Yingdong Shi, Zheng Zhang, Kaitao Song, Wenjie Shi, Jingang Wang, Kan Ren
arXiv AI
Oct 27

MultiEvoSkill: Structure-Aware Multi-Agent Skill Evolution for Generalizable Skill Artifacts

MultiEvoSkill is a skill‑optimization framework that transforms skill documents into typed graphs, enabling explicit procedural topology and parallel branches. It employs a heterogeneous agent system to generate revision suggestions based on diverse experiences, and a structure‑aware debate mechanism to resolve edits while respecting dependencies and importance constraints. Experiments show that this approach outperforms state‑of‑the‑art methods and improves cross‑model generalization of skill artifacts.

By Kounianhua Du, Jianxing Liu, Ruoshui Shan, Yucheng Zhang, Ke Li, Xing Sun, Weinan Zhang
arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 3

SkillSpec: Consensus-Gated Agent Skill Evolution via Representation Specialization

SkillSpec is a two‑phase framework for evolving natural‑language skills in large language model agents. The first phase, consensus‑gated evolution, generates candidate skills from complementary editing intents and commits updates only when paired evaluations reach consensus on overall improvement and non‑negative aggregate gain. The second phase, representation specialization, uses signals from the optimization trajectory to choose an appropriate flat, graph, or hybrid structure for the skill, improving success rates by an average of 6.89% over SkillOpt across six benchmarks and three target language models.

By Huancheng Chen, Xiaodi Sun, Zhaoqiong Huang, Shenyang Huang Shreya Singhal, Jingwen Lu
arXiv AI
Oct 1

Self-Evolving Harness on Multiple Tasks with the Agent as Its Own Optimizer

The paper introduces a self‑evolving harness framework where a frozen language‑model agent first solves tasks and then edits its own harness based on run records. Using a 49‑line seed harness, the evolved harness improves average scores on in‑distribution benchmarks by 4.48 points and on out‑of‑distribution benchmarks by 12.64 points, surpassing Codex on the former and matching it on the latter. Continued evolution on a specific out‑of‑distribution benchmark further raises performance, and the study analyzes emergent mechanisms such as output truncation and history compaction.

By Qiankai Xu
arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 3

SkillEvoLean: Mutation-enhanced skill evolution for Lean provers

SkillEvoLean introduces a mutation‑enhanced skill evolution framework for Lean theorem provers, jointly refining a high‑level solving policy and its reference knowledge. The method combines progressive updates from successful and failed proof trajectories with mutation‑based exploration when no complete proof is found, sampling mathematical concepts to generate new skill candidates. Evaluations on MiniF2F, PutnamBench, IMO 2025, and USAMO 2026 show significant proof success improvements over baseline approaches.

By Kuo Zhou, ZiXion Yang, Lu Zhang
arXiv AI
Sep 15

SkillLift: Learning Dense Rubrics from Sparse Oracles for Efficient Skill Evolution

SkillLift introduces a method for efficiently evolving reusable procedural prompts (skills) in large language model agents by learning a dense rubric that aligns with sparse oracle evaluations. Instead of directly revising skill text based on costly full agent rollouts, the approach decouples skill search from oracle cost through a bilevel optimization framework: an inner loop uses a frozen rubric as a cheap surrogate to guide skill updates, while an outer loop periodically realigns the rubric using a small number of oracle rollouts via rank correlation. Experiments on complex agent task benchmarks demonstrate that SkillLift outperforms existing auto-skill methods while reducing token cost by 40–70% compared to frontier-evolving approaches.

By Haoxiang Kang, Ming Wen
arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 8

SkillRL: Evolving Agents via Recursive Skill-Augmented Reinforcement Learning

SkillRL is a framework that enhances large language model agents by automatically discovering and evolving skills from raw experience. It builds a hierarchical skill library called SkillBank, uses an adaptive retrieval strategy for heuristics, and allows the skill library to co‑evolve with the agent’s policy during reinforcement learning. These techniques reduce token usage and improve reasoning, achieving state‑of‑the‑art results on ALFWorld, WebShop, and seven search‑augmented tasks, outperforming baselines by 15.3% and remaining robust as task complexity grows.

By Peng Xia, Jianwen Chen, Hanyang Wang, Jiaqi Liu, Kaide Zeng, Yu Wang, Siwei Han, Yiyang Zhou, Xujiang Zhao, Haifeng Chen, Zeyu Zheng, Cihang Xie, Huaxiu Yao
arXiv AI
Sep 25

A Wrong Turn Does Not Ruin the Journey: Deviation-Guided Skill Self-Evolution for LLM Agents

The paper introduces SkillPivot, a framework that guides large language model agents to evolve their skills by pinpointing the exact moment a useful problem‑solving sequence turns into an erroneous suffix. SkillPivot uses execution validity, goal progress, and action diversity to detect this deviation point, then employs a stronger teacher to generate a successful alternative from the same prefix. By contrasting the failed and successful suffixes, the method produces localized, compact skill updates that preserve existing effective guidance, outperforming other skill‑evolution techniques on benchmarks such as ToolQA, LogicBench, and WildClawBench.

By Yichun Feng, Jiawei Wang, Haozhe Sun