mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

OpenSkill: Open-World Self-Evolution for LLM Agents

arXiv 2606.06741 ↗First posted 4 Jun 2026cs.AI cs.CL cs.LGcited by 12

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

Abstract (arXiv)

Self-evolving agents requires adaptation after deployment, but existing approaches assume a usable learning loop, such as curated skills, successful trajectories, or verifier signals. Real open-world deployments may provide none of these, offering only a task prompt. In this work, we study open-world self-evolution, where an agent must build both its skills and its own verification signals from scratch, using open-world resources but no target-task supervision. We propose OpenSkill, a framework that bootstraps this loop: it acquires grounded knowledge and verification anchors from documentation, repositories, and the web, synthesizes them into transferable skills, and refines those skills against self-built virtual tasks grounded in the anchors rather than in target answers. The open world thus supplies both the knowledge to be learned and a supervision-independent practice environment, with target-task supervision reserved for final evaluation. Across three benchmarks and two target agents, OpenSkill attains the best automated pass rate while satisfying the no-supervision constraint. Analysis shows its skills transfer across models without model-specific adaptation, and its self-built verifier aligns with ground-truth outcomes despite never accessing them.

Key facts. Cited by 12 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 36 of its 41 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 4 Jun 2026.

Builds on

36 of 41 references.

Closest ancestors · 9

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2026SkillGen: Verified Inference-Time Agent Skill Synthesis9 May
  2. 2026Graph-of-Skills: Dependency-Aware Structural Retrieval for Massive Agent Skills7 Apr
  3. 2026How Well Do Agentic Skills Work in the Wild: Benchmarking LLM Skill Usage in Realistic Settings6 Apr
  4. 2026CoEvoSkills: Self-Evolving Agent Skills via Co-Evolutionary Verification2 Apr
  5. 2026SkillReducer: Optimizing LLM Agent Skills for Token Efficiency31 Mar
  6. 2026Agent Skills for Large Language Models: Architecture, Acquisition, Security, and the Path Forward12 Feb
  7. 2026SkillRL: Evolving Agents via Recursive Skill-Augmented Reinforcement Learning9 Feb
  8. 2025Reinforcement Learning for Self-Improving Agent with Skill Library18 Dec
  9. 2025SkillFlow: Scalable and Efficient Agent Skill Retrieval System8 Apr

Other references · 27

  1. 2020Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Knowledge-Intensive NLP Taskscited by 9,297
  2. 2023Judging LLM-as-a-Judge with MT-Bench and Chatbot Arenacited by 8,626
  3. 2022Self-Consistency Improves Chain of Thought Reasoning in Language Modelscited by 5,708
  4. 2023Reflexion: Language Agents with Verbal Reinforcement Learningcited by 4,276
  5. 2023Toolformer: Language Models Can Teach Themselves to Use Toolscited by 4,182
  6. 2023Self-Refine: Iterative Refinement with Self-Feedbackcited by 3,442
  7. 2023Tree of Thoughts: Deliberate Problem Solving with Large Language Modelscited by 3,211
  8. 2023Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Large Language Models: A Surveycited by 2,212
  9. 2023Voyager: An Open-Ended Embodied Agent with Large Language Modelscited by 2,191
  10. 2023WebArena: A Realistic Web Environment for Building Autonomous Agentscited by 2,006
  11. 2021WebGPT: Browser-assisted question-answering with human feedbackcited by 1,745
  12. 2024SWE-agent: Agent-Computer Interfaces Enable Automated Software Engineeringcited by 1,737
15 more
  1. 2024A Survey on LLM-as-a-Judgecited by 1,423
  2. 2023Teaching Large Language Models to Self-Debugcited by 988
  3. 2023Automatic Prompt Optimization with "Gradient Descent" and Beam Searchcited by 653
  4. 2026Terminal-Bench: Benchmarking Agents on Hard, Realistic Tasks in Command Line Interfacescited by 585
  5. 2023Language Agent Tree Search Unifies Reasoning Acting and Planning in Language Modelscited by 574
  6. 2022CodeT: Code Generation with Generated Testscited by 384
  7. 2022ScienceWorld: Is your Agent Smarter than a 5th Grader?cited by 327
  8. 2025Deep Research Agents: A Systematic Examination And Roadmapcited by 128
  9. 2026AutoSkill: Experience-Driven Lifelong Learning via Skill Self-Evolutioncited by 115
  10. 2026Memento-Skills: Let Agents Design Agentscited by 62
  11. 2026SkillNet: Create, Evaluate, and Connect AI Skillscited by 53
  12. 2025CASCADE: Cumulative Agentic Skill Creation through Autonomous Development and Evolutioncited by 34
  13. 2026EffiSkill: Agent Skill Based Automated Code Efficiency Optimizationcited by 9
  14. 2026AgentFactory: A Self-Evolving Framework Through Executable Subagent Accumulation and Reusecited by 4
  15. 2025Large Language Models for Unit Test Generation: Achievements, Challenges, and Opportunitiescited by 2

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 12.

12 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026MetaSkill-Evolve: Recursive Self-Improvement of LLM Agents via Two-Timescale Meta-Skill Evolution
  2. 2026Training LLM Agents for Spontaneous, Reward-Free Self-Evolution via World Knowledge Exploration
  3. 2026EvoBelief: Falsifiable World Models for Self-Improving LLM Agents
  4. 2026EvoAgentBench: Benchmarking Agent Self-Evolution via Ability Transfer
  5. 2026EvolvingBrain: An Adaptive Skill System for Multi-modal Agents Self-Evolution in Open Worlds
  6. 2026ANCHOR: An External LLM-Driven Supervisory Module Facilitating Healthy Evolution in Self-Evolving Systems
  7. 2026TRACE: A Self-Evolving Skill Bank for Consistent, Limit-Aware LLM Agents
  8. 2026VASO: Formally Verifiable Self-Evolving Skills for Physical AI Agents