# Managing Procedural Memory in LLM Agents: Control, Adaptation, and Evaluation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.23127 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.23127/

## Key facts

- Cited by 8 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 26 of its 45 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 22 Jun 2026.

## Placed in

- LLM agents and tool use / [Agent skill learning and evolution](https://mlsanity.com/agents/agent-skill-learning-and-evolution/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 26 of 26)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [Language Models are Few-Shot Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.14165/) (2020)
- [ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.03629/) (2022)
- [Efficient Memory Management for Large Language Model Serving with PagedAttention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.06180/) (2023)
- [SWE-bench: Can Language Models Resolve Real-World GitHub Issues?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.06770/) (2023)
- [A Survey on Large Language Model based Autonomous Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.11432/) (2023)
- [WebArena: A Realistic Web Environment for Building Autonomous Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.13854/) (2023)
- [GAIA: a benchmark for General AI Assistants](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.12983/) (2023)
- [ExpeL: LLM Agents Are Experiential Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.10144/) (2023)
- [Terminal-Bench: Benchmarking Agents on Hard, Realistic Tasks in Command Line Interfaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.11868/) (2026)
- [MLE-bench: Evaluating Machine Learning Agents on Machine Learning Engineering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.07095/) (2024)
- [Darwin Godel Machine: Open-Ended Evolution of Self-Improving Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.22954/) (2025)
- [AutoSkill: Experience-Driven Lifelong Learning via Skill Self-Evolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.01145/) (2026)
- [EvoSkill: Automated Skill Discovery for Multi-Agent Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.02766/) (2026)
- [SkillClaw: Let Skills Evolve Collectively with Agentic Evolver](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.08377/) (2026)
- [SkillX: Automatically Constructing Skill Knowledge Bases for Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.04804/) (2026)
- [How Well Do Agentic Skills Work in the Wild: Benchmarking LLM Skill Usage in Realistic Settings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.04323/) (2026)
- [A Systematic Survey of Automatic Prompt Optimization Techniques](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.16923/) (2025)
- [Memento-Skills: Let Agents Design Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.18743/) (2026)
- [Active Instruction Tuning: Improving Cross-Task Generalization by Training on Prompt Sensitive Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.00288/) (2023)
- [From Exploration to Mastery: Enabling LLMs to Master Tools via Self-Driven Interactions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.08197/) (2024)
- [SkillReducer: Optimizing LLM Agent Skills for Token Efficiency](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.29919/) (2026)
- [SPRIG: Improving Large Language Model Performance by System Prompt Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.14826/) (2024)
- [Empowering Large Language Model Agents through Action Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.15809/) (2024)
- [DevOps-Gym: Benchmarking AI Agents in Software DevOps Cycle](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.20882/) (2026)
- [Hermes: A Large Language Model Framework on the Journey to Autonomous Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.06490/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 8 of 8)

- [SkillZip: Contract-Preserving Graph Compression for Scalable Agent Skill Libraries](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.05604/) (2026)
- [Do Personalized Skills Help Coding Agents? An Empirical Study of Developer Interaction Histories](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.10319/) (2026)
- [Does Your Agent's Memory Survive a Model Upgrade? A Controlled Study of Memory Portability](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.05339/) (2026)
- [EchoPath: Execution-Level Replayable Memory for GUI Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.16635/) (2026)
- [LongWoF-Bench: Evaluating EvoMap Genes for Verifiable Long-Workflow Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.23200/) (2026)
- [Procedural Memory Under Change: Reuse and Interference in Controlled Web Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.09774/) (2026)
- [EnSIMem: Entity-Structured Indexing for Long-Term Agent Memory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.27279/) (2026)
- [Thinking Outside the Box: Can Language Models Rely on External Guidance Selectively?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.39578/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Procedural memory is increasingly used to improve LLM agents on recurring workplace tasks, yet its ability to produce reusable skills remains poorly understood. We introduce AFTER, a benchmark of 382 realistic enterprise tasks spanning six professional roles and 22 procedural skills, designed to evaluate how skills transfer across tasks, roles, and model backbones. The benchmark includes controlled evaluation settings for local improvement, cross-task transfer, cross-role transfer, and cross-model generalization. Experiments show that procedural memory delivers consistent gains in industrial workflows: a single refinement round improves aggregate performance by 3.7-6.7 points, while skills evolved from diverse multi-model execution traces achieve 73.1% cross-model test accuracy, outperforming all single-model trace sources. We further find that some skills generalize broadly across tasks and models, whereas others become specialized to role-specific workflows and lose effectiveness under transfer. These results provide practical guidance for building, evaluating, and deploying procedural memory systems in production agent platforms.