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.md with 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

1. Choose a Name: Use lowercase and hyphens (e.g., my-new-skill).
2. Create Directory: Create a directory at .github/skills/<skill-name>/.
3. Create SKILL.md: Create a SKILL.md file inside that directory.
4. Add Metadata: Include YAML frontmatter with name and description.
   • 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").
5. Add Instructions: Write the markdown body with clear steps, examples, and guidance.
6. 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

---
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 /explain to see how the skill is being applied.