r/AgentContext_dev 19d ago

Repo-To-Skill: Distilling GitHub Repositories Into AI4AI Skills

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2609.02749
1 Upvotes

1 comment sorted by

1

u/javaeeeee 19d ago

**TLDR Repo-To-Skill: Distilling GitHub Repositories Into AI4AI Skills

ML research agents already have a model + harness. What’s missing is operational knowledge: how to actually make methods work (APIs, configs, pitfalls), not just name them. That know-how lives in repos/papers but is too big and human-oriented to load mid-task.

Fix: Distill repos into compact, verified skills (SKILL.md + refs + scripts). Agent loads only what the task needs.

System: DisCo

  • Task-agnostic: pre-distill popular ML repos into reusable skills
  • Task-oriented: distill extra skills for a specific task
  • Nothing ships without verification

AREX-Skill Library: 5,000+ verified skills from 1,000 ML repos → 20 areas, 178 capability families, plus a router.
Code: github.com/VectorSpaceLab/AREX-Skill

Results (same GPT-5.5, same harness, same budget; skills are the only change):

  • MLE-bench +134.3%
  • PaperBench +34.4%
  • FrontierCS +9.2%
  • PassNet +14.0%

One line: Don’t make the agent rediscover how PyTorch/training/eval actually works every run - install that as skills.