The paper introduces VERSE, a Verified Self‑Evolving optimizer that enhances LLM agent harnesses by allowing the optimizer to test edits, replay failures, and perturb steps while tracking fixes and regressions. VERSE builds its own tools for failure analysis, verification, training audits, and workflow control, and uses this feedback to revise the harness’s prompts, skills, tools, hooks, and notes without changing model weights. In experiments across five executors and multiple languages, VERSE improves all evaluated harness optimizers, achieving higher accuracy on held‑out and out‑of‑distribution tasks compared to the strongest baselines.
By Zekai Wang, Yingqiang Ge, Zekun Wang, Hai Wang, Yuhui Xu, Joshua Frandsen, Shancong Fu, Ashia C. Wilson, Chandan K. Reddy
arXiv:2606. 17546v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Self-evolving LLM-based agents improve mainly by changing their agent harness: the structured execution layer around a base model, including prompts, memory, tools, middleware, runtime state, and the model-tool interaction loop.
By Congjie Zheng, Chuanyi Xue, Bin Liang, Jun Yang, Changshui Zhang
arXiv:2606. 20512v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: LLM-based coding agents need higher-level operational knowledge about a repository (which files house which subsystems, how to run the test suite, which workflows have historically led to wrong fixes) that does not exist in the code itself.
By Asa Shepard, Jeannie Albrecht
arXiv:2610.16725v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Improving an LLM agent requires knowing what to change when it fails. Similar failures can require different fixes, and resolving one problem can expos...
By Wenfeng Wang, Jianrui Shi, Mingang Guo, Jiayuan Ma, Yuqi Lu, Jiajun Sun, Guojiang Zhao, Jing Li
arXiv:2610.17609v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Training-free self-improvement lets an agent use feedback to revise the response it is about to return and to update the harness state that shapes how...
By Tianyi Xu, Yaolun Zhang, Yiran Wu, Joe Nguyen, Shengyu Dai, Saba Moeinizade, Zhenwen Shao, Qingyun Wu, Huazheng Wang
The paper investigates how agent harness evolution supports recursive self‑improvement without changing model weights, assessing four methods across general and coding tasks. Repeated tests and component interventions show that all evolved agents acquire new tasks while losing some previously mastered ones, with reliability gains sometimes offset by higher deployment costs. The study highlights that the highest‑scoring agent does not always deliver the greatest mean improvement, and that stricter admission criteria can eliminate useful alternatives; it proposes preservation‑aware evaluation and a follow‑up tool, EvoAudit, to refine agent design.
By Xiaobo Wang, Zimu Wang, Siyu Ye, Jiaqi Li, Min Tang, Jun Bai, Yuling Shi, Ruobing Wang, Jingjing Zhang, Chaofan Wang, Kai Wu, Mengnan Qi, Kai Cai, Xiaodong Gu, Qi Liu, Zilong Zheng