Agent Skills - Install & Create

Install the skill-creator, then use it right away to build your first custom skill.

⏱️ Estimated time: 10–15 minutes

Skills are what make Copilot truly customizable. Instead of writing the same complex prompts over and over, you package them into reusable skill files (SKILL.md) that Copilot loads automatically. In this module you’ll install the skill-creator and immediately put it to work.

What Are Agent Skills?

Skills are structured instruction files that give Copilot domain-specific capabilities. Think of them as expert playbooks - each skill teaches Copilot a specific workflow. They can be:

  • Installed from the community via skills.sh
  • Created custom for your team using the skill-creator
  • Shared across repositories and teams via Git

Install the Skill Creator

Run this in your terminal or paste it directly into GitHub Copilot CLI:

npx skills add anthropics/skills --skill skill-creator

You’ll see output confirming the skill was downloaded and placed in your .github/skills/ directory.

Verify Installation 

/skills list

You should see skill-creator in the list. You can also type /skill and Copilot will auto-suggest relevant installed skills.

Skill not showing up? Make sure you ran the install command from the root of a Git repository. Skills are stored in .github/skills/ relative to your project root.

Create Your First Skill

Now let’s use the skill-creator right away. Here’s a practical example - creating a skill that prepares daily stand-up summaries:

Use the skill-creator to create a new skill called "standup-prep" that
prepares a daily stand-up summary. It should check recent git commits,
open pull requests by the current user, and today's calendar if WorkIQ
is available. Format the output as Yesterday / Today / Blockers.

The skill-creator will:

  1. Ask clarifying questions if it needs more detail
  2. Generate a SKILL.md file with proper frontmatter and step-by-step instructions
  3. Save it to .github/skills/standup-prep/SKILL.md

That’s it - your skill is ready to use.

Try Your New Skill

Test it by asking Copilot a natural question:

What did I work on yesterday?

Copilot detects the standup-prep skill from its description and follows the instructions automatically. If it doesn’t trigger, refine the description:

Use the skill-creator to improve the description of my standup-prep
skill so it triggers when I ask about daily status or what I did yesterday.

More Skill Ideas

Here are a few more skills worth creating:

  • debug-ci - Diagnose failing GitHub Actions workflows by pulling logs and summarizing errors
  • pr-review-checklist - Run through your team’s code review checklist on a pull request diff
  • format-release-notes - Generate release notes from merged PRs since the last tag

For each one, just describe what you want in plain English and let the skill-creator handle the rest.

Organizing Your Skills

Before you install a dozen skills, think about where they should live:

Where Path Best for Install flag
Global ~/.copilot/skills/ Personal productivity, always available npx skills add ... -g
Project .github/skills/ Team workflows, shared via Git npx skills add ... (default)

Rule of thumb: “Would I use this in every repo?” → Global. “Is this specific to this team/project?” → Project.

Skills created at the project level travel with the repo - when a colleague clones it, they automatically get your team’s skills.

Explore More Skills

Check out the Resources & Skill Repos page for curated skill repositories from Anthropic, Vercel, and Microsoft.

🎯 Try it yourself: Use the skill-creator to build a standup-prep skill, then test it by asking Copilot: “What did I work on yesterday?”

References: About agent skills · Skills CLI · skills.sh marketplace

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