Studying from Trajectories: Turning Agent Experience into Stepping-Stone Tasks

Continually improving agents must decide what to learn from experience and how to practice it. We define studying as identifying knowledge and skills worth learning from trajectories and practicing them through targeted exercises. Stage implements this process by turning lessons from trajectories into single-turn stepping-stone tasks. These tasks let the agent practice individual components of complex behavior with focused feedback, without repeating the full interaction. New interaction experience guides each study iteration, allowing practice to evolve with the agent. On AppWorld, Stage improves avg@4 by 15.3 percentage points over the base model on Test-Challenge, demonstrating substantial gains from learning through studying and interaction. Further analysis suggests that studying strengthens knowledge and local decision making, while interaction helps the agent apply and combine these capabilities within longer workflows. Alternating these complementary phases turns experience into focused practice that supports more effective action and continued improvement.