Skills — Examples for GitHub Copilot

Agent Skills are reusable capability packages that agents discover and load automatically. Unlike Instructions (which are always injected) or Agents (which you invoke explicitly), a Skill activates itself when Copilot decides it is relevant to the current task — based on a short description you write in the skill file.

Skills follow the Agent Skills open standard (opens in new tab) and work across multiple AI coding assistants — not just GitHub Copilot.

How skills differ from instructions and agents

How Copilot discovers skills

When you start a task in agent mode, Copilot scans .github/skills/ for SKILL.md files and reads each skill’s description field. If the description matches what you are working on, Copilot loads the skill’s content into context — no manual invocation needed.

Write the description to match the keywords that will appear in your prompts. A specific description (“Apply Defra security and PII handling rules when reviewing route handlers or logging code”) activates more reliably than a vague one (“Security stuff”).

How to enable skills in VS Code

Enable the Chat: Use Agent Skills setting in VS Code:

1. Open Settings (Ctrl+, on Windows/Linux, Cmd+, on macOS)
2. Search for chat.agent.skills
3. Enable the setting

You can also set this in your workspace .vscode/settings.json:

{
  "chat.agent.skills": true
}

SKILL.md format

Each skill lives in its own directory. The directory name must match the name field in the YAML frontmatter:

.github/skills/
└── defra-standards/
    ├── SKILL.md             # Required — frontmatter + guidance content
    └── references/          # Optional sub-resources (scripts, examples, docs)
        └── approved-packages.md

The SKILL.md file uses YAML frontmatter followed by markdown:

---
name: defra-standards
description: Defra software development standards for Node.js and .NET government services. Use when writing, reviewing, or refactoring code in a Defra digital service.
license: OGL-UK-3.0
metadata:
  author: defra-digital
  version: "1.0"
---

# Defra Standards

## Rules
- One rule per line
- Include examples where helpful

Frontmatter fields

Keep SKILL.md under 500 lines. Move detailed reference material to separate files in the skill directory and reference them from SKILL.md.

Personal and global skills

Skills work at two scopes:

Personal skills are useful for coding preferences that apply across all your projects. Project skills are for standards and patterns specific to one service.

Cross-tool compatibility

Skills follow the agentskills.io open standard and work with any compatible AI assistant:

Available examples

Back to Getting Started