mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

SkillCraft: Can LLM Agents Learn to Use Tools Skillfully?

arXiv 2603.00718 ↗First posted 28 Feb 2026cs.CL cs.SEcited by 30

On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Agent skill learning and evolution

Abstract (arXiv)

Real-world tool-using agents operate over long-horizon workflows with recurring structure and diverse demands, where effective behavior requires not only invoking atomic tools but also abstracting, and reusing higher-level tool compositions. However, existing benchmarks mainly measure instance-level success under static tool sets, offering limited insight into agents' ability to acquire such reusable skills. We address this gap by introducing SkillCraft, a benchmark explicitly stress-test agent ability to form and reuse higher-level tool compositions, where we call Skills. SkillCraft features realistic, highly compositional tool-use scenarios with difficulty scaled along both quantitative and structural dimensions, designed to elicit skill abstraction and cross-task reuse. We further propose a lightweight evaluation protocol that enables agents to auto-compose atomic tools into executable Skills, cache and reuse them inside and across tasks, thereby improving efficiency while accumulating a persistent library of reusable skills. Evaluating state-of-the-art agents on SkillCraft, we observe substantial efficiency gains, with token usage reduced by up to 80% by skill saving and reuse. Moreover, success rate strongly correlates with tool composition ability at test time, underscoring compositional skill acquisition as a core capability.

Key facts. Cited by 30 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Agent skill learning and evolution, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 25 of its 36 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 28 Feb 2026.

Builds on

25 of 36 references.

References · 25

  1. 2022ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Modelscited by 8,695
  2. 2023SWE-bench: Can Language Models Resolve Real-World GitHub Issues?cited by 3,373
  3. 2023WebArena: A Realistic Web Environment for Building Autonomous Agentscited by 2,006
  4. 2024τ-bench: A Benchmark for Tool-Agent-User Interaction in Real-World Domainscited by 1,402
  5. 2023AgentBench: Evaluating LLMs as Agentscited by 1,267
  6. 2024OSWorld: Benchmarking Multimodal Agents for Open-Ended Tasks in Real Computer Environmentscited by 1,195
  7. 2023GAIA: a benchmark for General AI Assistantscited by 1,128
  8. 2025DeepSeek-V3.2: Pushing the Frontier of Open Large Language Modelscited by 815
  9. 2025BrowseComp: A Simple Yet Challenging Benchmark for Browsing Agentscited by 647
  10. 2025Kimi K2: Open Agentic Intelligencecited by 567
  11. 2024Executable Code Actions Elicit Better LLM Agentscited by 564
  12. 2024AppWorld: A Controllable World of Apps and People for Benchmarking Interactive Coding Agentscited by 401
13 more
  1. 2024TheAgentCompany: Benchmarking LLM Agents on Consequential Real World Taskscited by 326
  2. 2023Ghost in the Minecraft: Generally Capable Agents for Open-World Environments via Large Language Models with Text-based Knowledge and Memorycited by 289
  3. 2023CREATOR: Tool Creation for Disentangling Abstract and Concrete Reasoning of Large Language Modelscited by 93
  4. 2025The Tool Decathlon: Benchmarking Language Agents for Diverse, Realistic, and Long-Horizon Task Executioncited by 85
  5. 2025SWE-bench Goes Live!cited by 80
  6. 2025ACEBench: Who Wins the Match Point in Tool Usage?cited by 71
  7. 2026MCP-Atlas: A Large-Scale Benchmark for Tool-Use Competency with Real MCP Serverscited by 53
  8. 2025MCP-RADAR: A Multi-Dimensional Benchmark for Evaluating Tool Use Capabilities in Large Language Modelscited by 48
  9. 2025LiveMCPBench: Can Agents Navigate an Ocean of MCP Tools?cited by 48
  10. 2025MCPWorld: A Unified Benchmarking Testbed for API, GUI, and Hybrid Computer Use Agentscited by 38
  11. 2025MCPEval: Automatic MCP-based Deep Evaluation for AI Agent Modelscited by 36
  12. 2025MCP-AgentBench: Evaluating Real-World Language Agent Performance with MCP-Mediated Toolscited by 32
  13. 2025ARE: Scaling Up Agent Environments and Evaluationscited by 30

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Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 30.

30 papers.

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  1. 2026CoEvoSkills: Self-Evolving Agent Skills via Co-Evolutionary Verificationcited by 128
  2. 2026Natural-Language Agent Harnessescited by 61
  3. 2026SkillRevise: Improving LLM-Authored Agent Skills via Trace-Conditioned Skill Revisioncited by 30
  4. 2026SkillFlow:Benchmarking Lifelong Skill Discovery and Evolution for Autonomous Agentscited by 25
  5. 2026From Raw Experience to Skill Consumption: A Systematic Study of Model-Generated Agent Skillscited by 22
  6. 2026A Comprehensive Survey on Agent Skills: Taxonomy, Techniques, and Applicationscited by 18
  7. 2026SkillsVote: Lifecycle Governance of Agent Skills from Collection, Recommendation to Evolutioncited by 18
  8. 2026Skill-R1: Agent Skill Evolution via Reinforcement Learningcited by 15
  9. 2026SkillAxe: Sharpening LLM-Authored Agent Skills Through Evaluation-Guided Self-Refinementcited by 12
  10. 2026WikiSkill: Compiling Agent Experience into Persistent Knowledge for Skill Evolutioncited by 12
  11. 2026SkillGraph: Self-Evolving Multi-Agent Collaboration with Multimodal Graph Topologycited by 9
  12. 2026SkillCAT: Contrastive, Assessment-Augmented and Topology-AwareSkill Self-Evolution for LLM Agentscited by 7
18 more
  1. 2026From Chatbot to Digital Colleague: The Paradigm Shift Toward Persistent Autonomous AIcited by 6
  2. 2026Dynamic Agent Skills: A Lifecycle Survey and Taxonomy of Evolving Skill Librariescited by 6
  3. 2026SkillEvolBench: Benchmarking the Evolution from Episodic Experience to Procedural Skillscited by 5
  4. 2026TraceCompiler: Skill-Guided Mining and Compilation of LLM Agent Traces into Mostly Deterministic Workflowscited by 5
  5. 2026RedAct: Redacting Agent Capability Traces for Procedural Skill Protectioncited by 3
  6. 2026Tools as Continuous Flow for Evolving Agentic Reasoningcited by 2
  7. 2026Skill or Skip? Learning Selective Skill Invocation in Agentic Tasks via Dual-Granularity Preference Learningcited by 2
  8. 2026OpenClaw-Skill: Collective Skill Tree Search for Agentic Large Language Modelscited by 2
  9. 2026Coalition-Aware Skill Reliability for Self-Evolving Agentscited by 2
  10. 2026Evidence Over Plans: Online Trajectory Verification for Skill Distillationcited by 1
  11. 2026SetupX: Can LLM Agents Learn from Past Failures in Functionality-Correct Code Repository Setup?cited by 1
  12. 2026PYTHALAB-MERA: Validation-Grounded Memory, Retrieval, and Acceptance Control for Frozen-LLM Coding Agentscited by 0
  13. 2026Toward Skill-Native LLMs: Skill Entropy for Benchmarking and Training Long-Horizon Reasoningcited by 0
  14. 2026Natural-Language Workflows Are Not Software Yet: Artifact-Driven Compilation for Reliable Agent Executioncited by 0
  15. 2026Towards a Systems Foundation for Agentic Skills: Architecture, Lifecycle, and Securitycited by 0
  16. 2026Subagents vs Agent Skills: Executing Reusable Knowledge for Long-Horizon Agentic Taskscited by 0
  17. 2026RESKILL: Explicit Failure Attribution and Structured Repair for Interactive Language Agentscited by 0
  18. 2026EVISKILL: Grounding Skill Evolution in Replayable Evidencecited by 0

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026MUSE-Autoskill: Self-Evolving Agents via Skill Creation, Memory, Management, and Evaluation
  2. 2026GraSP: Graph-Structured Skill Compositions for LLM Agents
  3. 2026How Well Do Agentic Skills Work in the Wild: Benchmarking LLM Skill Usage in Realistic Settings
  4. 2026SkillRouter: Skill Routing for LLM Agents at Scale
  5. 2026SoK: Agentic Skills -- Beyond Tool Use in LLM Agents
  6. 2026SkillCorpus: Consolidating and Evaluating the Open Skill Ecosystem for Real-World LLM Agents
  7. 2026A Framework for Evaluating Agentic Skills at Scale
  8. 2026SkillGenBench: Benchmarking Skill Generation Pipelines for LLM Agents