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WikiSkill: Compiling Agent Experience into Persistent Knowledge for Skill Evolution

arxiv.org

Aug 29, 2026

8/29/2026

Skill Evolution Complements Model Scaling By Raising The Capability Frontier Of Smaller Models While Enhancing Performance Of Larger Models

WikiSkill: Compiling Agent Experience into Persistent Knowledge for Skill Evolution · arxiv.org

Science, Technology & Innovation · Aug 29, 2026

Skill evolution and model scaling are complementary: larger models benefit more from learned workflows, while skills can enable smaller models to outperform much larger unskilled ones. WikiSkill raised Qwen-3.5-9B to 47.4% average accuracy versus 39.4% for unskilled Qwen-3.6-27B, and improved the largest model’s Spreadsheet score from 40.8% to 81.7%.


8/29/2026

Skill Transfer Between Models Is Nonmonotonic And Requires Cross-Model Evaluation And Negative-Transfer Testing

WikiSkill: Compiling Agent Experience into Persistent Knowledge for Skill Evolution · arxiv.org

Science, Technology & Innovation · Aug 29, 2026

Skill transfer can substantially improve another model’s performance, but portability varies by source-target-task pair: Qwen-3.6-27B skills boosted weaker models on SpreadSheet and LiveMath, while smaller-model skills also helped in some cases yet severely harmed Gemini on SpreadSheet through restrictive, inefficient workarounds. Skills should therefore be tested for negative transfer rather than selected solely from the strongest authoring model.


8/29/2026

Information Leakage Through Training Wiki Access Undermines Skill Refinement

WikiSkill: Compiling Agent Experience into Persistent Knowledge for Skill Evolution · arxiv.org

Science, Technology & Innovation · Aug 29, 2026

The ablation shows that persistent wiki access substantially improves skill quality when given to the Skill Proposer, but harms performance when exposed to the training-time Inference Agent because it masks whether learned skills actually work; knowledge for skill improvement should therefore be separated from knowledge available during execution and evaluation.


8/29/2026

Store Trace-Derived Patterns Separately From Production To Enable Reversible Experimentation And Retain Learning

WikiSkill: Compiling Agent Experience into Persistent Knowledge for Skill Evolution · arxiv.org

Science, Technology & Innovation · Aug 29, 2026

WikiSkill separates immutable evidence, retained diagnoses, and executable skills so rejected changes can be rolled back without losing the lessons that informed later improvements.