Skill Creator
This skill helps you create new Agent Skills for this repository. Agent Skills are specialized, repeatable tasks that GitHub Copilot can handle in agent mode.
Why Agent Skills?
- •Specialized Workflows: Handle tasks like debugging or testing without repetitive prompting.
- •Open Standard: Uses the Anthropic standard for portability across tools (VS Code, Copilot CLI, Cursor).
- •Domain-Specific: Injects repo-specific instructions and resources on demand.
- •Context Efficiency: Reduces context window bloat by loading only relevant skills.
Mental Model
Agent Skills are repository-level extensions.
- •A skill is a directory under
.github/skills/. - •Each skill contains a mandatory
SKILL.mdwith YAML frontmatter (name,description) and a Markdown body. - •Copilot matches your request to a skill description and injects the content into its context.
Steps to Create a New Skill
- •Choose a Name: Use lowercase and hyphens (e.g.,
my-new-skill). - •Create Directory: Create a directory at
.github/skills/<skill-name>/. - •Create SKILL.md: Create a
SKILL.mdfile inside that directory. - •Add Metadata: Include YAML frontmatter with
nameanddescription.- •
name: The name of the skill (same as the directory name). - •
description: A clear, prompt-aligned description (e.g., "Use for debugging failing GitHub Actions").
- •
- •Add Instructions: Write the markdown body with clear steps, examples, and guidance.
- •Optional Resources: Add scripts, data files, or tools in the same directory.
Survival Kit
- •Day 0: Install VS Code Insiders and enable Copilot.
- •Week 1: Create your first skill and confirm it autoloads by writing a matching prompt.
- •Week 2: Build production skills with scripts and share them in the team repo.
Best Practices
- •One Job Per Skill: Keep skills focused. Split them if they become too large.
- •Clear Descriptions: Vague descriptions cause irrelevant loading.
- •No Secrets: Never embed secrets; use environment variables.
- •Compactness: Keep skills compact to save context.
Example SKILL.md Template
markdown
--- name: <skill-name> description: <clear-description-of-the-skill> --- <instructions-and-examples-go-here>
Debugging & Observability
- •Enable Copilot debug mode:
copilot.chat.debug=true. - •Check the VS Code output panel logs for skill injection.
- •Use
/explainto see how the skill is being applied.