OpenSkill: Open-World Self-Evolution for LLM Agents
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
- 2026SkillGen: Verified Inference-Time Agent Skill Synthesis9 May
- 2026Graph-of-Skills: Dependency-Aware Structural Retrieval for Massive Agent Skills7 Apr
- 2026How Well Do Agentic Skills Work in the Wild: Benchmarking LLM Skill Usage in Realistic Settings6 Apr
- 2026CoEvoSkills: Self-Evolving Agent Skills via Co-Evolutionary Verification2 Apr
- 2026SkillReducer: Optimizing LLM Agent Skills for Token Efficiency31 Mar
- 2026Agent Skills for Large Language Models: Architecture, Acquisition, Security, and the Path Forward12 Feb
- 2026SkillRL: Evolving Agents via Recursive Skill-Augmented Reinforcement Learning9 Feb
- 2025Reinforcement Learning for Self-Improving Agent with Skill Library18 Dec
- 2025SkillFlow: Scalable and Efficient Agent Skill Retrieval System8 Apr
Other references · 27
- 2020Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Knowledge-Intensive NLP Taskscited by 9,297
- 2023Judging LLM-as-a-Judge with MT-Bench and Chatbot Arenacited by 8,626
- 2022Self-Consistency Improves Chain of Thought Reasoning in Language Modelscited by 5,708
- 2023Reflexion: Language Agents with Verbal Reinforcement Learningcited by 4,276
- 2023Toolformer: Language Models Can Teach Themselves to Use Toolscited by 4,182
- 2023Self-Refine: Iterative Refinement with Self-Feedbackcited by 3,442
- 2023Tree of Thoughts: Deliberate Problem Solving with Large Language Modelscited by 3,211
- 2023Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Large Language Models: A Surveycited by 2,212
- 2023Voyager: An Open-Ended Embodied Agent with Large Language Modelscited by 2,191
- 2023WebArena: A Realistic Web Environment for Building Autonomous Agentscited by 2,006
- 2021WebGPT: Browser-assisted question-answering with human feedbackcited by 1,745
- 2024SWE-agent: Agent-Computer Interfaces Enable Automated Software Engineeringcited by 1,737
15 more
- 2024A Survey on LLM-as-a-Judgecited by 1,423
- 2023Teaching Large Language Models to Self-Debugcited by 988
- 2023Automatic Prompt Optimization with "Gradient Descent" and Beam Searchcited by 653
- 2026Terminal-Bench: Benchmarking Agents on Hard, Realistic Tasks in Command Line Interfacescited by 585
- 2023Language Agent Tree Search Unifies Reasoning Acting and Planning in Language Modelscited by 574
- 2022CodeT: Code Generation with Generated Testscited by 384
- 2022ScienceWorld: Is your Agent Smarter than a 5th Grader?cited by 327
- 2025Deep Research Agents: A Systematic Examination And Roadmapcited by 128
- 2026AutoSkill: Experience-Driven Lifelong Learning via Skill Self-Evolutioncited by 115
- 2026Memento-Skills: Let Agents Design Agentscited by 62
- 2026SkillNet: Create, Evaluate, and Connect AI Skillscited by 53
- 2025CASCADE: Cumulative Agentic Skill Creation through Autonomous Development and Evolutioncited by 34
- 2026EffiSkill: Agent Skill Based Automated Code Efficiency Optimizationcited by 9
- 2026AgentFactory: A Self-Evolving Framework Through Executable Subagent Accumulation and Reusecited by 4
- 2025Large Language Models for Unit Test Generation: Achievements, Challenges, and Opportunitiescited by 2
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2026: 12.
12 papers.
- 2026Skill Self-Play: Pushing the Frontier of LLM Capability with Co-Evolving Skillscited by 10
- 2026ModularRSI: Modular and Generalizable Recursive Harness Self-Improvementcited by 9
- 2026AgentStream: How Well Do Self-Evolving LLM Agents Perform Under Streaming Tasks?cited by 4
- 2026X-Alpha: An AI Quant Researcher with Memory-Driven Self-Evolutioncited by 2
- 2026AutoCRAT: Within-trajectory Joint Control of Stochasticity and Compute for LLM Reasoningcited by 2
- 2026EpiCon: Collective Agent Learning through Co-Evolving Multimodal Memorycited by 1
- 2026SkillPoison: Progressive Skill Poisoning via Successful Experiencescited by 1
- 2026AgentOmnia: Scaling Agentic Models for Full-Scenario Applicationscited by 0
- 2026Self-Supervised Skill Optimizationcited by 0
- 2026BEHAVE: Functional Behavior Modeling Enables Self-Improving Agents for Hardware Design and Verificationcited by 0
- 2026Retrieval-Augmented Skill Optimization via Cross-Harness Adaptationcited by 0
- 2026From Existing Methods to New Research Ideas: Two Perspectives on Recursive Self-Improvementcited by 0
- 2026From Existing Methods to New Research Ideas: Two Perspectives on Recursive Self-Improvement10 Oct 2026
- 2026SkillPoison: Progressive Skill Poisoning via Successful Experiences6 Oct 2026
- 2026Retrieval-Augmented Skill Optimization via Cross-Harness Adaptation29 Sep 2026
- 2026EpiCon: Collective Agent Learning through Co-Evolving Multimodal Memory29 Sep 2026
- 2026BEHAVE: Functional Behavior Modeling Enables Self-Improving Agents for Hardware Design and Verification28 Sep 2026
- 2026ModularRSI: Modular and Generalizable Recursive Harness Self-Improvement14 Sep 2026
- 2026AutoCRAT: Within-trajectory Joint Control of Stochasticity and Compute for LLM Reasoning30 Aug 2026
- 2026AgentStream: How Well Do Self-Evolving LLM Agents Perform Under Streaming Tasks?31 Jul 2026
- 2026Self-Supervised Skill Optimization30 Jul 2026
- 2026AgentOmnia: Scaling Agentic Models for Full-Scenario Applications25 Jul 2026
- 2026Skill Self-Play: Pushing the Frontier of LLM Capability with Co-Evolving Skills24 Jul 2026
- 2026X-Alpha: An AI Quant Researcher with Memory-Driven Self-Evolution9 Jul 2026
Similar, not cited
Close in wording, no citation either way
- 2026MetaSkill-Evolve: Recursive Self-Improvement of LLM Agents via Two-Timescale Meta-Skill Evolution
- 2026Training LLM Agents for Spontaneous, Reward-Free Self-Evolution via World Knowledge Exploration
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- 2026EvoAgentBench: Benchmarking Agent Self-Evolution via Ability Transfer
- 2026EvolvingBrain: An Adaptive Skill System for Multi-modal Agents Self-Evolution in Open Worlds
- 2026ANCHOR: An External LLM-Driven Supervisory Module Facilitating Healthy Evolution in Self-Evolving Systems
- 2026TRACE: A Self-Evolving Skill Bank for Consistent, Limit-Aware LLM Agents
- 2026VASO: Formally Verifiable Self-Evolving Skills for Physical AI Agents