Autonomously improve a real artifact (code, training recipe, agent harness, data pipeline, prompt) against an objective and an evaluator, using Hypothesis Tree Refinement (HTR) from the Arbor paper. Use this whenever someone wants to iteratively optimize something over many experiments without overfitting — e.g. "get my model's eval score up", "improve this agent/harness", "tune this pipeline", "beat the baseline on this benchmark", "run a search over approaches and keep the best", "do an MLE-bench / Kaggle-style optimization", or any long-horizon "make this artifact better and don't just memorize the dev set" task. Trigger it even when the user doesn't say "Arbor" or "hypothesis tree" but describes repeated experiment-and-evaluate loops, branching exploration of competing ideas, or worries about a dev/test gap. Runs Claude itself as the coordinator with subagent executors in isolated git worktrees; for the standalone `arbor` CLI tool see references/arbor-upstream.md.
Arbor includes pricing or quota commentary; at least one code block. At roughly 1,871 words the SKILL.md is on the longer end of the catalog distribution.
Arbor sits in the Science & Research category under the math-stats sub-topic in the ClaudSkills catalog. There are 10 related skills indexed alongside it; comparing a few before installing usually reveals which fits your workflow best.
These notes are auto-generated from features detected in the SKILL.md file and from this catalog's structure — they aren't part of the source repository.
What this skill does
Arbor is a community-contributed Claude Code skill in the math-stats sub-category. It ships as a SKILL.md file that Claude Code auto-discovers under ~/.claude/skills/arbor/ and loads when your prompt matches the skill's trigger.
Who uses this skill
The Arbor Claude Code skill is built for researchers, data scientists, academics, and analysts working with complex data and scientific literature. It's part of ClaudSkills (also referred to as Claude Skills or Claude Code Skills) — the open community-curated registry of 161,000+ SKILL.md files for Anthropic's Claude Code agent and the wider Claude ecosystem (Claude API, Claude Agent SDK).
Or just download SKILL.md directly and drop it into ~/.claude/skills/arbor/. Claude Code auto-discovers it on next session.
Skills live at ~/.claude/skills/arbor/SKILL.md on macOS/Linux, or %USERPROFILE%\.claude\skills\arbor\SKILL.md on Windows. See the full install guide for step-by-step instructions.
Telegram
📱 Install from your phone or desktop Telegram
Open @claudskills_bot on Telegram, tap Open Desktop App, and the desktop app installs this skill for you. Or share the bot link with a colleague — they get the same one-tap install. Learn more →
Pro
One-click install via the desktop app
The ClaudSkills desktop app installs any skill directly into ~/.claude/skills/ with one click — no terminal required. Pro starts at $9/mo or $149 lifetime.
Pro
For the full experience including quality scoring and one-click install features for each skill — upgrade to Pro.
Install via the ClaudSkills desktop app (one click) or copy SKILL.md from the source repository to ~/.claude/skills/arbor/SKILL.md and restart Claude Code. Both flows are detailed at claudskills.com/install/.
What does the Arbor skill do?
Autonomously improve a real artifact (code, training recipe, agent harness, data pipeline, prompt) against an objective and an evaluator, using Hypothesis Tree Refinement (HTR) from the Arbor paper. Use this whenever someone wants to iteratively optimize something over many experiments without overfitting — e.g. "get my model's eval score up", "improve this agent/harness", "tune this pipeline", "beat the baseline on this benchmark", "run a search over approaches and keep the best", "do an MLE-bench / Kaggle-style optimization", or any long-horizon "make this artifact better and don't just memorize the dev set" task. Trigger it even when the user doesn't say "Arbor" or "hypothesis tree" but describes repeated experiment-and-evaluate loops, branching exploration of competing ideas, or worries about a dev/test gap. Runs Claude itself as the coordinator with subagent executors in isolated git worktrees; for the standalone `arbor` CLI tool see references/arbor-upstream.md.
Is this skill free to install?
Yes. ClaudSkills is an open registry — every skill keeps its source repository's license, and manual install via copy is free. ClaudSkills Pro ($9/mo, $79/yr, or $149 one-time) adds one-click install via the desktop app and a multi-signal Quality Score.
When should I use the Arbor skill?
Use Arbor when your Claude Code task falls under the Science & Research category — specifically in the math stats area. Claude Code auto-discovers installed skills and invokes the right one based on the task description, so you can also ask Claude directly (e.g. "use Arbor" or describe the task and let Claude pick). Browse related skills at /category/science/.
What is a Claude Code skill and how does the Arbor skill fit in?
A Claude Code skill is a SKILL.md file that lives under ~/.claude/skills/<name>/ and tells the Claude Code CLI agent how to perform a specific task (instructions, prompts, allowed tools). Skills are auto-discovered at session start. Arbor is one of 67,000+ skills indexed in the open ClaudSkills catalog, classified under the Science & Research category. Learn more at /learn/what-is-a-claude-skill/.
@misc{arbor-2026,
author = {K-Dense-AI},
title = {Arbor [Claude Code skill]},
year = {2026},
publisher = {ClaudSkills},
url = {https://claudskills.com/skills/arbor/}
}
Embed this skill
Promote, attribute, or link this skill from your own README, blog post, or documentation. All three snippets are free to use — no sign-up, no API key. More distribution surfaces →
Claude™ is a trademark of Anthropic PBC. ClaudSkills (also referred to as Claude Skills or Claude Code Skills Catalog) is an independent community-curated registry of SKILL.md files, not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Anthropic.
Install ClaudSkills — browse 70k+ skills offline, one tap from your home screen.