Skills

Install skills in VS Code

VS Code looks for skills in .github/skills/, .claude/skills/ and .agents/skills/ in a project, and in ~/.copilot/skills/, ~/.claude/skills/ and ~/.agents/skills/ for all your projects.

Where VS Code looks for skills

This project

  • .github/skills/
  • .claude/skills/
  • .agents/skills/

All projects

  • ~/.copilot/skills/
  • ~/.claude/skills/
  • ~/.agents/skills/

Source: code.visualstudio.com (opens in a new tab), checked 26 Oct 2026.

Install a skill

  1. Copy the skill's folder, with its SKILL.md at the top, into .github/skills/ in your project, or into ~/.copilot/skills/ for all your projects.
  2. Keep the folder named exactly as the name field in its SKILL.md, as the Agent Skills spec asks.
  3. Or use the Copilot & VS Code tab on any skill's page here: its commands copy that skill at the commit we checked.

What it honours

Frontmatter fields VS Code reads beyond the six in the Agent Skills spec.

  • argument-hint
  • user-invocable
  • disable-model-invocation
  • context

Watch out for

  • The name must match the folder name, and a name with characters other than lowercase letters, digits and hyphens makes the skill silently fail to load.
  • VS Code also reads ~/.claude/skills, so skills installed for Claude Code show up here too.
  • Two skills with the same name in different folders both appear in the list.
  • context: fork is experimental.

Where every other agent looks for skills