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