mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

SkillsVote: Lifecycle Governance of Agent Skills from Collection, Recommendation to Evolution

arXiv 2605.18401 ↗First posted 18 May 2026cs.CL cs.AIcited by 18

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

Abstract (arXiv)

Long-horizon LLM agents generate traces that could become reusable experience, but raw trajectories are noisy, local, and hard to govern. Agent Skills offer a structured artifact for combining procedural guidance, executable resources, and applicability boundaries. Yet open skill ecosystems contain redundant, uneven, environment-sensitive artifacts, and indiscriminate updates can pollute future context. We present SkillsVote, a lifecycle-governance framework for Agent Skills across collection, recommendation, attribution, and evolution. SkillsVote profiles a million-scale open source corpus for environment requirements, quality, and verifiability, and synthesizes tasks for verifiable skills. Before execution, it performs agentic library search over structured skill folders to expose instructional context. After execution, it decomposes trajectories into skill-linked subtasks, attributes outcomes to skill-guided execution, agent exploration, environment, and result signals, and admits only successful reusable discoveries to evidence-gated updates. Experiments on Terminal-Bench 2.0 and SWE-Bench Pro show that SkillsVote improves agent performance on challenging agentic coding benchmarks. The gains arise from two complementary pathways: online evolution over task streams at test time and offline transfer via frozen libraries built from either historical trajectories or curated open source skills.

Key facts. Cited by 18 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Agent skill learning and evolution, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 65 of its 87 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 18 May 2026.

Builds on

65 of 87 references.

Closest ancestors · 22

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2026SkillOS: Learning Skill Curation for Self-Evolving Agents7 May
  2. 2026Skill1: Unified Evolution of Skill-Augmented Agents via Reinforcement Learning7 May
  3. 2026SkCC: Portable and Secure Skill Compilation for Cross-Framework LLM Agents5 May
  4. 2026SkillForge: Forging Domain-Specific, Self-Evolving Agent Skills in Cloud Technical Support9 Apr
  5. 2026SkillClaw: Let Skills Evolve Collectively with Agentic Evolver9 Apr
  6. 2026SkillX: Automatically Constructing Skill Knowledge Bases for Agents6 Apr
  7. 2026How Well Do Agentic Skills Work in the Wild: Benchmarking LLM Skill Usage in Realistic Settings6 Apr
  8. 2026SkVM: Revisiting Language VM for Skills across Heterogenous LLMs and Harnesses3 Apr
  9. 2026SKILL0: In-Context Agentic Reinforcement Learning for Skill Internalization2 Apr
  10. 2026CoEvoSkills: Self-Evolving Agent Skills via Co-Evolutionary Verification2 Apr
  11. 2026Trace2Skill: Distill Trajectory-Local Lessons into Transferable Agent Skills26 Mar
  12. 2026SkillRouter: Skill Routing for LLM Agents at Scale23 Mar
10 more
  1. 2026MetaClaw: Just Talk -- An Agent That Meta-Learns and Evolves in the Wild17 Mar
  2. 2026EvoSkill: Automated Skill Discovery for Multi-Agent Systems3 Mar
  3. 2026Organizing, Orchestrating, and Benchmarking Agent Skills at Ecosystem Scale2 Mar
  4. 2026SkillCraft: Can LLM Agents Learn to Use Tools Skillfully?28 Feb
  5. 2026SoK: Agentic Skills -- Beyond Tool Use in LLM Agents24 Feb
  6. 2026SkillsBench: Benchmarking How Well Agent Skills Work Across Diverse Tasks13 Feb
  7. 2026SkillRL: Evolving Agents via Recursive Skill-Augmented Reinforcement Learning9 Feb
  8. 2026Agent Skills: A Data-Driven Analysis of Claude Skills for Extending Large Language Model Functionality8 Feb
  9. 2026Skill-Pro: Learning Reusable Skills from Experience via Non-Parametric PPO for LLM Agents2 Feb
  10. 2025Reinforcement Learning for Self-Improving Agent with Skill Library18 Dec

Other references · 43

  1. 2023Reflexion: Language Agents with Verbal Reinforcement Learningcited by 4,064
  2. 2023SWE-bench: Can Language Models Resolve Real-World GitHub Issues?cited by 3,193
  3. 2023Voyager: An Open-Ended Embodied Agent with Large Language Modelscited by 2,081
  4. 2023WebArena: A Realistic Web Environment for Building Autonomous Agentscited by 1,908
  5. 2024OSWorld: Benchmarking Multimodal Agents for Open-Ended Tasks in Real Computer Environmentscited by 1,134
  6. 2023ExpeL: LLM Agents Are Experiential Learnerscited by 814
  7. 2026Terminal-Bench: Benchmarking Agents on Hard, Realistic Tasks in Command Line Interfacescited by 515
  8. 2024AppWorld: A Controllable World of Apps and People for Benchmarking Interactive Coding Agentscited by 359
  9. 2025Agentic Context Engineering: Evolving Contexts for Self-Improving Language Modelscited by 349
  10. 2024Agent Workflow Memorycited by 342
  11. 2025SWE-Bench Pro: Can AI Agents Solve Long-Horizon Software Engineering Tasks?cited by 254
  12. 2025ReasoningBank: Scaling Agent Self-Evolving with Reasoning Memorycited by 253
31 more
  1. 2023Synapse: Trajectory-as-Exemplar Prompting with Memory for Computer Controlcited by 180
  2. 2025Memento: Fine-tuning LLM Agents without Fine-tuning LLMscited by 119
  3. 2026Agentic Harness Engineering: Observability-Driven Automatic Evolution of Coding-Agent Harnessescited by 119
  4. 2026AutoSkill: Experience-Driven Lifelong Learning via Skill Self-Evolutioncited by 105
  5. 2025Memp: Exploring Agent Procedural Memorycited by 88
  6. 2026OpenClaw-RL: Train Any Agent Simply by Talkingcited by 83
  7. 2026Externalization in LLM Agents: A Unified Review of Memory, Skills, Protocols and Harness Engineeringcited by 68
  8. 2025Remember Me, Refine Me: A Dynamic Procedural Memory Framework for Experience-Driven Agent Evolutioncited by 65
  9. 2026Memento-Skills: Let Agents Design Agentscited by 56
  10. 2025Training-Free Group Relative Policy Optimizationcited by 53
  11. 2026AgentRx: Diagnosing AI Agent Failures from Execution Trajectoriescited by 53
  12. 2025FLEX: Continuous Agent Evolution via Forward Learning from Experiencecited by 51
  13. 2026SkillNet: Create, Evaluate, and Connect AI Skillscited by 48
  14. 2025CASCADE: Cumulative Agentic Skill Creation through Autonomous Development and Evolutioncited by 33
  15. 2026Beyond Semantic Similarity: Rethinking Retrieval for Agentic Search via Direct Corpus Interactioncited by 33
  16. 2025Let It Flow: Agentic Crafting on Rock and Roll, Building the ROME Model within an Open Agentic Learning Ecosystemcited by 28
  17. 2026AgentProcessBench: Diagnosing Step-Level Process Quality in Tool-Using Agentscited by 28
  18. 2026SkillFlow:Benchmarking Lifelong Skill Discovery and Evolution for Autonomous Agentscited by 19
  19. 2026From Context to Skills: Can Language Models Learn from Context Skillfully?cited by 19
  20. 2026Trajectory-Informed Memory Generation for Self-Improving Agent Systemscited by 16
  21. 2026Experience Compression Spectrum: Unifying Memory, Skills, and Rules in LLM Agentscited by 16
  22. 2026SkillMOO: Multi-Objective Optimization of Agent Skills for Software Engineeringcited by 14
  23. 2026Position: Agentic Evolution is the Path to Evolving LLMscited by 13
  24. 2026Beyond Static Tools: Test-Time Tool Evolution for Scientific Reasoningcited by 12
  25. 2026Autogenesis: A Self-Evolving Agent Protocolcited by 12
  26. 2026MemGovern: Enhancing Code Agents through Learning from Governed Human Experiencescited by 10
  27. 2026GenericAgent: A Token-Efficient Self-Evolving LLM Agent via Contextual Information Density Maximization (V1.0)cited by 10
  28. 2026From Procedural Skills to Strategy Genes: Towards Experience-Driven Test-Time Evolutioncited by 9
  29. 2026CodeScout: An Effective Recipe for Reinforcement Learning of Code Search Agentscited by 7
  30. 2026From Multi-Agent to Single-Agent: When Is Skill Distillation Beneficial?cited by 6
  31. 2025Unifying Dynamic Tool Creation and Cross-Task Experience Sharing through Cognitive Memory Architecturecited by 4

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 18.

18 papers.

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  1. 2026SkillAdaptor: Self-Adapting Skills for LLM Agents from Trajectoriescited by 10
  2. 2026Agent Skill Evaluation and Evolution: Frameworks and Benchmarkscited by 6
  3. 2026Dynamic Agent Skills: A Lifecycle Survey and Taxonomy of Evolving Skill Librariescited by 6
  4. 2026Skill Self-Play: Pushing the Frontier of LLM Capability with Co-Evolving Skillscited by 6
  5. 2026Ratchet: How Reliable Must an LLM Judge Be to Retire a Skill?cited by 3
  6. 2026Rethinking Self-Evolving Agent Skills: Feedback Dynamics over Multiple Roundscited by 3
  7. 2026Unsupervised Skill Discovery for Agentic Data Analysiscited by 2
  8. 2026SkillWiki: A Living Knowledge Infrastructure for Agent Skillscited by 2
  9. 2026SKILL-KD: Contrastive Skill Distillation for LLM Agentscited by 2
  10. 2026Behavioral Skill Reconstruction: Reconstructing Hidden Functionality from LLM Agent Skillscited by 2
  11. 2026Practice Makes Unsafe: Skill Misevolution in Self-Improving LLM Agentscited by 2
  12. 2026Harnessing Agent Skills: Architectural Patterns and a Reference Architecture for Skill-Mediated LLM Agentscited by 1
6 more
  1. 2026The Blind Curator: How a Biased Judge Silently Disables Skill Retirement in Self-Evolving Agentscited by 1
  2. 2026ESC-Skills: Discovering and Self-Evolving Skills for Emotional Support Conversationscited by 0
  3. 2026You Live More Than Once: Towards Hierarchical Skill Meta-Evolvingcited by 0
  4. 2026Workflow-to-Skill: Skill Creation via Routing-Workflow-Semantics-Attachments Decompositioncited by 0
  5. 2026From Execution to Capability: Scientific Experience Consolidation via Procedural Knowledge Synthesiscited by 0
  6. 2026SKILLLITE: Evidence-Guided Malicious Skill Auditing with Compact LLMscited by 0

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026SkillCorpus: Consolidating and Evaluating the Open Skill Ecosystem for Real-World LLM Agents
  2. 2026SKILLFOUNDRY: Building Self-Evolving Agent Skill Libraries from Heterogeneous Scientific Resources
  3. 2026SkillRet: A Large-Scale Benchmark for Skill Retrieval in LLM Agents
  4. 2026SkillSeek: Revisiting Agent Skill Retrieval at Marketplace Scale
  5. 2026SkillCommit: Evolving Agent Skills through Behaviorally Validated Scope Expansion
  6. 2026SkillHone: A Harness for Continual Agent Skill Evolution Through Persistent Decision History
  7. 2026A Framework for Evaluating Agentic Skills at Scale
  8. 2026SkillFocus: Evolving Agent Skills via Capability Decomposition