mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

CoSkill: Joint Reinforcement Learning of Reasoning and Meta-Skill Agents for Hierarchical Skill Evolution

arXiv 2609.04865 ↗First posted 4 Sep 2026cs.AIcited by 0

On the map: LLM reasoning → Reasoning for agents, planning and code

also in 1 more
Abstract (arXiv)

Skill libraries improve the sample efficiency of agentic reinforcement learning (RL) by enabling large language model (LLM) agents to reuse procedural knowledge. Yet existing paradigms exhibit structural shortcomings: they either decouple skill evolution from policy optimization or instantiate meta-skills as fixed workflows. Both treat skills as passive objects to be managed, limiting the flexible evolution of skills and their co-adaptation with the reasoning agent. To address the limitations, we propose CoSkill, a unified multi-agent RL framework that recasts the static meta-skill workflow as a learnable Meta-Skill Agent and jointly trains it with a Reasoning Agent over a hierarchical skill library. By modeling the Reasoning and Meta-Skill Agents as a cooperative team sharing a single backbone, CoSkill enables end-to-end co-adaptation: the Reasoning Agent conditions its actions on a retrieved task skill and step skills selected from its child set, while its task performance guides the Meta-Skill Agent in refining those step skills. Experiments on ALFWorld and WebShop show that CoSkill substantially outperforms prior skill-based and RL baselines, achieving success rates of 98.4% and 90.6%, respectively (+3.5 and +6.2 pp). As shown in Figure 1, CoSkill achieves superior early-stage sample efficiency, asymptotic performance, and wall-clock efficiency. Our code is available at https://github.com/jinyuan-cookie/CoSkill.

Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Reasoning for agents, planning and code, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 40 of its 46 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 4 Sep 2026.

Builds on

40 of 46 references.

Closest ancestors · 1

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2026ARISE: Agent Reasoning with Intrinsic Skill Evolution in Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning17 Mar

Other references · 39

  1. 2017Proximal Policy Optimization Algorithmscited by 14,441
  2. 2024DeepSeekMath: Pushing the Limits of Mathematical Reasoning in Open Language Modelscited by 8,851
  3. 2022ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Modelscited by 8,355
  4. 2024Qwen2.5 Technical Reportcited by 4,713
  5. 2023Reflexion: Language Agents with Verbal Reinforcement Learningcited by 4,064
  6. 2023Self-Refine: Iterative Refinement with Self-Feedbackcited by 3,317
  7. 2023Voyager: An Open-Ended Embodied Agent with Large Language Modelscited by 2,081
  8. 2022WebShop: Towards Scalable Real-World Web Interaction with Grounded Language Agentscited by 1,197
  9. 2020ALFWorld: Aligning Text and Embodied Environments for Interactive Learningcited by 1,143
  10. 2025Mem0: Building Production-Ready AI Agents with Scalable Long-Term Memorycited by 722
  11. 2023Automatic Prompt Optimization with "Gradient Descent" and Beam Searchcited by 628
  12. 2023Promptbreeder: Self-Referential Self-Improvement Via Prompt Evolutioncited by 521
27 more
  1. 2025Group-in-Group Policy Optimization for LLM Agent Trainingcited by 442
  2. 2025Agentic Context Engineering: Evolving Contexts for Self-Improving Language Modelscited by 349
  3. 2024Agent Workflow Memorycited by 342
  4. 2026SkillRL: Evolving Agents via Recursive Skill-Augmented Reinforcement Learningcited by 252
  5. 2025Memory-R1: Enhancing Large Language Model Agents to Manage and Utilize Memories via Reinforcement Learningcited by 220
  6. 2026Trace2Skill: Distill Trajectory-Local Lessons into Transferable Agent Skillscited by 161
  7. 2026SimpleMem: Efficient Lifelong Memory for LLM Agentscited by 140
  8. 2025EvolveR: Self-Evolving LLM Agents through an Experience-Driven Lifecyclecited by 129
  9. 2026SkillOpt: Executive Strategy for Self-Evolving Agent Skillscited by 122
  10. 2026MemRL: Self-Evolving Agents via Runtime Reinforcement Learning on Episodic Memorycited by 113
  11. 2025Inducing Programmatic Skills for Agentic Taskscited by 103
  12. 2026EvoSkill: Automated Skill Discovery for Multi-Agent Systemscited by 96
  13. 2025Reinforcement Learning for Self-Improving Agent with Skill Librarycited by 91
  14. 2026Agentic Memory: Learning Unified Long-Term and Short-Term Memory Management for Large Language Model Agentscited by 72
  15. 2024AutoGuide: Automated Generation and Selection of Context-Aware Guidelines for Large Language Model Agentscited by 69
  16. 2025Mem-α: Learning Memory Construction via Reinforcement Learningcited by 49
  17. 2026Meta Context Engineering via Agentic Skill Evolutioncited by 42
  18. 2026Dynamic Dual-Granularity Skill Bank for Agentic RLcited by 33
  19. 2026Skill1: Unified Evolution of Skill-Augmented Agents via Reinforcement Learningcited by 28
  20. 2024Skill Set Optimization: Reinforcing Language Model Behavior via Transferable Skillscited by 24
  21. 2025Meta-RL Induces Exploration in Language Agentscited by 17
  22. 2026RetroAgent: From Solving to Evolving via Retrospective Dual Intrinsic Feedbackcited by 16
  23. 2023StrategyLLM: Large Language Models as Strategy Generators, Executors, Optimizers, and Evaluators for Problem Solvingcited by 13
  24. 2026ReSkill: Reconciling Skill Creation with Policy Optimization in Agentic RLcited by 13
  25. 2026SkillEvolver: Skill Learning as a Meta-Skillcited by 12
  26. 2026MetaSkill-Evolve: Recursive Self-Improvement of LLM Agents via Two-Timescale Meta-Skill Evolutioncited by 12
  27. 2026JADE: Bridging the Strategic-Operational Gap in Dynamic Agentic RAGcited by 6

Built on by

Not cited yet.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026SkillForge: Co-Evolving Skills and Agents via Dynamic Skill Lifecycles
  2. 2026SkillRise: Agentic Reinforcement Learning for Cross-Task Skill Evolution
  3. 2026SkillComposer: Learning to Evolve Agent Skills for Specification and Generalization
  4. 2026Skill-R1: Agent Skill Evolution via Reinforcement Learning
  5. 2026SkillForge: Evolving Verifiable Skills for Reinforcement Learning Agents
  6. 2026ContinualSkillBench: Can LLM Agents Truly Evolve Their Capabilities?
  7. 2026Skill0.5: Joint Skill Internalization and Utilization for Out-of-Distribution Generalization in Agentic Reinforcement Learning
  8. 2026SkillGraph: Skill-Augmented Reinforcement Learning for Agents via Evolving Skill Graphs