☁️ Azure Agent Skills

🚀 Agentic Skills for Azure Development

>

Supercharge your AI coding assistant with curated, production-ready skills for Microsoft Azure. Works seamlessly with:

>

🟣 Claude Code | 🔵 Gemini CLI | 🟢 Codex CLI | 🔴 Antigravity IDE | 🩵 GitHub Copilot | 🟠 Cursor | ⚪ OpenCode | 🌸 AdaL CLI

Azure Agent Skills is a curated collection of high-quality agentic skills specifically designed for Azure cloud development. These skills follow the Agent Skills open standard and work seamlessly with modern AI coding assistants to provide expert-level guidance on Azure services.

📍 Table of Contents

• 🚀 New Here? Start Here!
• ⚡ One-Click Plugin Install
• 🔌 Compatibility & Invocation
• 📦 Features & Categories
• 🎁 Curated Collections (Bundles)
• 📚 Browse All Skills
• 🛠️ Installation
• 🧠 How to Use
• 📖 Agent Skills Documentation
• 🤝 How to Contribute
• ⚖️ License

🚀 New Here? Start Here!

1. 🐣 What is this?

AI Agents (like GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, or Cursor) are smart, but they lack specific, up-to-date knowledge about Azure services. Skills are folders containing markdown instructions, scripts, and resources that teach AI agents how to work with Azure services correctly, every time.

💡 Skills are reusable, filesystem-based resources that provide AI agents with domain-specific expertise. They load on-demand and eliminate the need to repeatedly provide the same guidance across conversations.

2. 📚 How These Skills Are Created

Microsoft Learn documentation already encodes decisions, procedures, best practices, and constraints — exactly what agents need to act effectively. Rather than relying on RAG to retrieve and summarize raw text every time, we pre-compile this knowledge into structured, executable skills.

Documentation as Pre-Built Skills: Many effective agent skills are not new inventions — they are structured patterns, workflows, and decision logic that already exist in documentation. Consider what Learn content contains:

• API patterns and usage guidance
• Service configuration procedures
• Platform best practices and constraints
• Troubleshooting decision trees
• Security and compliance requirements

Our approach:

1. Extract high-value, task-oriented capabilities from Learn content
2. Classify by purpose (limits, troubleshooting, configuration, architecture, etc.)
3. Reveal only when relevant to the user's intent

The knowledge is pre-compiled into actions, choices, and guardrails the agent can use directly — not raw text that needs interpretation.

Each skill provides:

• 📚 Curated documentation links organized by topic
• 🔗 Direct access to Microsoft Learn content
• 🎯 Best practices and architecture patterns
• ⚠️ Troubleshooting guides and common pitfalls

3. ⚡️ Quick Start

A short path to getting started — full installation details are in the 🛠️ Installation section below.

� Plugin install (recommended): VS Code, Claude Code, and Codex can install everything as a single agent plugin — no cloning or copying.

• VS Code: Command Palette → Chat: Install Plugin From Source → paste https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/agent-skills
• Claude Code: /plugin marketplace add MicrosoftDocs/agent-skills, then /plugin install azure-agent-skills@microsoft-agent-skills
• Codex: codex plugin marketplace add MicrosoftDocs/agent-skills, then install azure-agent-skills from /plugins

👉 See ⚡ One-Click Plugin Install for full steps and the marketplace options.

🛠️ Other assistants (manual):

1. Clone the repo:

   git clone https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/agent-skills.git

1. Copy the contents of the skills/ folder to your AI assistant's skills path (see 🛠️ Installation for the destination table and important notes).

1. VS Code users (manual mode): enable chat.agent.skills in Settings so the editor will load skills.

1. Start coding — your AI assistant will automatically discover and use the installed skills.

4. 🧠 How Skills Work

Skills use progressive disclosure to efficiently load content only when needed:

1. Level 1 - Discovery: Agent reads skill name and description from YAML frontmatter
2. Level 2 - Instructions: When triggered, agent loads the full SKILL.md content
3. Level 3 - Resources: Agent accesses additional files (scripts, examples) as needed

Once installed, just ask your AI assistant naturally:

"Help me set up Azure Functions with Durable Functions"

>

"What are the best practices for Azure Container Apps?"

>

"How do I configure Azure API Management?"

The skills will automatically provide context from official Microsoft documentation.

⚡ One-Click Plugin Install

🚀 Recommended. This repository ships as a ready-to-use [agent plugin](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/agent-customization/agent-plugins) with native manifests for every major assistant. Install once and all 193+ skills are available — no cloning, no copying, no manual skills/ setup.

🟦 VS Code

Option 1 — Install directly from source

1. Open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P / Cmd+Shift+P).
2. Run Chat: Install Plugin From Source.
3. Paste the repository URL:

   https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/agent-skills

1. VS Code clones and installs the plugin. All skills now appear in Chat: Configure Skills.

Option 2 — Add it as a plugin marketplace

Register this repo as a marketplace to browse and install (and get updates) from the Extensions view.

1. Add the repository to your chat.plugins.marketplaces setting:

   // settings.json
   "chat.plugins.marketplaces": [
     "MicrosoftDocs/agent-skills"
   ]

1. Open the Extensions view (Ctrl+Shift+X) and search @agentPlugins.
2. Find azure-agent-skills and select Install.

⚠️ Preview feature. Agent plugins require chat.plugins.enabled to be set to true. This setting may be managed by your organization. If you don't see the option, ask your administrator or use the manual installation below.

🟣 Claude Code

Claude Code installs this repo as a plugin through its marketplace. From within Claude Code:

1. Add this repository as a marketplace:

   /plugin marketplace add MicrosoftDocs/agent-skills

1. Install the plugin:

   /plugin install azure-agent-skills@microsoft-agent-skills

1. Run /reload-plugins (or restart Claude Code) to activate. All skills are now available.

🟢 OpenAI Codex

Codex installs this repo as a plugin through its plugin browser. From the Codex CLI:

1. Add this repository as a marketplace:

   codex plugin marketplace add MicrosoftDocs/agent-skills

1. Open the plugin browser and install azure-agent-skills from the microsoft-agent-skills marketplace:

   /plugins

1. Restart Codex if the skills don't appear immediately.

💡 One repo, every tool. The same repository ships native plugin manifests for each ecosystem — plugin.json (VS Code / Copilot CLI), .claude-plugin/ (Claude Code), and .codex-plugin/ + .agents/plugins/ (Codex) — so a single install gets you all skills wherever you work.

🔌 Compatibility & Invocation

These skills follow the Agent Skills open standard (SKILL.md format) and work with any AI coding assistant that supports agentic skills.

💡 Path Note: ~ refers to your home directory: - macOS/Linux: ~ = /Users/yourname or /home/yourname - Windows: ~ = %USERPROFILE% = C:\Users\yourname (use $HOME in PowerShell)

💡 Tip: Most modern tools support .agent/skills/ as a universal path. For GitHub Copilot, .github/skills/ is recommended per the Agent Skills specification.

📦 Features & Categories

The repository is organized by Azure service domains:

Total: 193 skills across 19 categories ✓

🎁 Curated Collections (Bundles)

Not sure where to start? We've created role-based skill bundles to help you get productive quickly.

👉 [View Curated Bundles (docs/BUNDLES.md)](docs/BUNDLES.md)

💡 Recommended Path: 1. Start with Quick Start Bundle 2. Add Popular Bundle for broader coverage 3. Choose specialized bundles based on your role

📚 Browse All Skills

We've moved the complete skill registry to a dedicated catalog to keep this README clean.

👉 [View the Complete Skill Catalog (docs/CATALOG.md)](docs/CATALOG.md)

📂 Repository Structure

#### About the products/ Directory

The products/ folder stores scan pipeline outputs and is used for:

• Raw Data: Results from the latest documentation scan, including extracted nodes and metadata
• Classification Reports: Detailed records of why each node was classified as a skill (or excluded)
• Incremental Tracking: Historical scan data to support delta processing and change detection

⚠️ Note: The products/ directory is for internal pipeline use and contributor reference. End users only need the skills/ directory.

🛠️ Installation

Choose the installation path based on your preferred AI coding assistant.

⚡ Option A: Install as an Agent Plugin (Recommended)

The fastest, zero-maintenance path — install once and get all skills, with built-in updates. Works in VS Code, Claude Code, and OpenAI Codex. See ⚡ One-Click Plugin Install for full details.

• VS Code (from source): Command Palette → Chat: Install Plugin From Source → paste https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/agent-skills.
• VS Code (marketplace): add "MicrosoftDocs/agent-skills" to chat.plugins.marketplaces, then install azure-agent-skills from the Extensions view (@agentPlugins).
• Claude Code: /plugin marketplace add MicrosoftDocs/agent-skills, then /plugin install azure-agent-skills@microsoft-agent-skills.
• OpenAI Codex: codex plugin marketplace add MicrosoftDocs/agent-skills, then install azure-agent-skills from /plugins.

⚠️ In VS Code, this requires the agent plugins preview (chat.plugins.enabled set to true). If unavailable, use Option B below.

📋 Option B: Manual Install (All Assistants)

⚠️ Note: This repository contains skills in the skills/ subdirectory. Clone the repo first, then copy the skills to your target location.

#### Step 1: Clone the Repository

First, clone this repository to a location on your machine (e.g., your home folder or a temp directory):

git clone https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/agent-skills.git

#### Step 2: Copy Skills to Your Destination

Copy the contents inside the skills/ folder to your target location based on your AI assistant:

⚠️ Important: Copy the folders inside skills/ (e.g., azure-functions/, azure-container-apps/), NOT the skills folder itself.

>

✅ Correct: .copilot/skills/azure-functions/SKILL.md ❌ Wrong: .copilot/skills/skills/azure-functions/SKILL.md

💡 Path Note: ~ = Home directory - Windows: C:\Users\yourname (use $HOME in PowerShell) - macOS/Linux: /Users/yourname or /home/yourname

Enable Agent Skills in VS Code (Required for the manual install above):

💡 Using the agent plugin (Option A)? You can skip this — the plugin loads its skills automatically once chat.plugins.enabled is on.

Agent Skills is currently an experimental feature. For the manual copy method, you must enable it manually:

1. Open VS Code Settings (Ctrl+, on Windows/Linux, Cmd+, on macOS)
2. Search for chat.agent.skills
3. Check the box for "Chat: Use Agent Skills"

vs-code-use-agent-skills

⚠️ Important: Without this setting enabled, VS Code will not load or use any skills!

#### Step 3: Cleanup (Optional)

After copying, you can delete the cloned agent-skills repository if you no longer need it.

🧠 How to Use

Prerequisites

Most skills require network access to fetch the latest documentation from Microsoft Learn.

Option 1: Microsoft Learn MCP Server (Recommended)

• Uses mcp_microsoftdocs:microsoft_docs_fetch to fetch complete documentation

Option 2: Web Fetch Tool

• Uses fetch_webpage to retrieve content from documentation URLs

Example Workflow

1. Ask about an Azure service:

   How do I implement blue-green deployments in Azure Container Apps?

1. The skill provides:

• Direct links to official Microsoft documentation
• Best practices from Microsoft Learn
• Architecture patterns and code examples

1. AI fetches documentation:

• The AI assistant uses MCP tools to fetch the latest content
• You get accurate, up-to-date guidance

📖 Agent Skills Documentation

Agent Skills is an open standard for giving AI agents new capabilities. Learn more about how each platform implements skills:

Official Documentation

Example Skill Repositories

Skill Structure

Every skill requires a SKILL.md file with YAML frontmatter:

---
name: your-skill-name        # Lowercase, hyphens only, max 64 chars
description: What it does    # When to use it, max 1024 chars
---

# Your Skill Name

## Instructions
[Clear, step-by-step guidance for the AI agent]

## Examples
[Concrete examples of using this skill]

🤝 How to Contribute

Thanks for your interest in contributing. Due to limited maintainer capacity right now, we do not accept contributions that manually create or edit any skills. Please update the relevant Microsoft Learn documentation, then create an issue to request a re-crawl, or wait for our automatic weekly crawl. We appreciate your understanding, and things may change in the future.

⚖️ License

This project uses a dual license:

• Documentation content: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License - See LICENSE
• Code: MIT License - See LICENSE-CODE

📚 Additional Resources

• Agent Skills Specification - The complete format specification
• Microsoft Learn Documentation
• Azure Architecture Center
• Azure Well-Architected Framework

🏷️ Topics

azure azure-functions azure-container-apps agent-skills agent-plugin vscode ai-coding github-copilot claude-code cursor openai-codex agentic-skills llm-tools microsoft-learn SKILL.md

Legal Notices

Microsoft and any contributors grant you a license to the Microsoft documentation and other content in this repository under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License, see the LICENSE file, and grant you a license to any code in the repository under the MIT License, see the LICENSE-CODE file.

Microsoft, Windows, Microsoft Azure and/or other Microsoft products and services referenced in the documentation may be either trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft in the United States and/or other countries. The licenses for this project do not grant you rights to use any Microsoft names, logos, or trademarks. You can find Microsoft general trademark guidelines at Microsoft Trademark and Brand Guidelines.

For privacy information, see privacy at Microsoft.

Microsoft and any contributors reserve all other rights, whether under their respective copyrights, patents, or trademarks, whether by implication, estoppel or otherwise.