{"id":256107,"date":"2026-05-13T09:00:47","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T16:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/visualstudio\/?p=256107"},"modified":"2026-04-29T12:04:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T19:04:20","slug":"agent-skills-in-visual-studio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/visualstudio\/agent-skills-in-visual-studio\/","title":{"rendered":"Agent Skills in Visual Studio: Teach Copilot How Your Team Works"},"content":{"rendered":"

Visual Studio now supports Agent Skills<\/strong>, which are reusable instruction sets that teach Copilot agents how to handle specific tasks like running a build pipeline, generating boilerplate, or following your team’s coding standards. Define a skill once, and the agent applies it automatically whenever it’s relevant.<\/p>\n

\"Copilot<\/a><\/p>\n

Creating a skill<\/h2>\n

You can create a skill directly from within Visual Studio. Click the tools icon<\/strong> in the bottom-right corner of Copilot Chat to open the skills panel, <\/strong>a dedicated view of every discovered skill. Click the +<\/strong> button in the top-right corner of the panel and follow the guided flow: choose a destination (global or solution-level skill), pick a name, and Visual Studio generates a skill template for you to fill in. Copilot Agent mode can then assist you in filling in the template. Currently this flow is only available in the Insiders<\/em> channel and will be in Release soon.<\/p>\n

\"create \u00a0 \u00a0<\/a>\"create<\/a><\/p>\n

You can also create a skill manually:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Create a skill directory in your repository (.github\/skills\/my-skill\/<\/code>) or user profile (~\/.copilot\/skills\/my-skill\/<\/code>).<\/li>\n
  2. Add a SKILL.md<\/code> file following the agentskills.io\/specification<\/a> format.<\/li>\n
  3. Optionally include scripts, templates, or examples alongside it.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    For example, you could have two skills, github-issues<\/code> and code-review<\/code> like this:<\/p>\n

    .github\/\r\n  skills\/\r\n    github-issues\/\r\n      SKILL.md\r\n      templates\/\r\n        bug-report.md\r\n    code-review\/\r\n      SKILL.md\r\n      checklist.md<\/code><\/pre>\n
    Skills are auto-discovered from these locations:<\/p>\n