skills: Add .NET Skills to AI Coding Agents

Overview

dotnet/skills provides reusable instructions and integrations that help AI coding agents work on .NET and C# projects. Rather than relying on a general-purpose agent for every task, developers can install skills focused on areas such as testing, builds, data access, and performance diagnostics.

The skills follow the Agent Skills standard and support several agent hosts, with some capabilities varying by host. The repository also includes GitHub Agentic Workflows. It is intended for developers and teams who want to extend an existing coding-agent setup with .NET-specific guidance.

Key Features

• Groups skills into plugins for .NET development, builds, data, testing, upgrades, diagnostics, and other specialties.
• Includes skills for ASP.NET Core, Blazor, MAUI, Windows Forms, AI and ML, and the .NET Template Engine.
• Provides C# language-server integration for hosts that support it.
• Supports plugin installation through Copilot CLI, Claude Code, Cursor, and a Codex marketplace; VS Code plugin support is described as a preview.
• Offers individual skill installation through the skill-installer CLI.
• Publishes reusable GitHub Agentic Workflows in agentic-workflows/.
• Links to a dashboard for comparing skill activation, token use, elapsed time, and evaluation results.

Use Cases

• .NET developers can give a coding agent task-specific guidance when building or maintaining applications.
• Teams upgrading framework versions or changing test frameworks can use focused migration skills.
• Engineers diagnosing build failures, performance issues, or incidents can draw on specialized troubleshooting guidance.
• Developers adopting a new agent host can install portable skills while checking which host-specific features are supported.

Getting Started

For Copilot CLI or Claude Code, add the marketplace and install a plugin:

/plugin marketplace add dotnet/skills
/plugin install dotnet@dotnet-agent-skills

See the README for setup instructions for other hosts and the full plugin catalog.

Alternatives

• agent-skills: It offers broad engineering workflows for coding agents, while skills focuses on .NET and C# development tasks.
• microsoft/skills: It focuses on Azure SDKs and Microsoft AI Foundry, while skills targets .NET and C# tasks more broadly.
• agency-agents: It provides role-based agent instruction files across professions, while skills provides portable, .NET-focused coding workflows.

Considerations

• Host support is component-specific. Skills and MCP servers are portable, but GitHub Copilot .agent.md files are not installed as native Codex agents.
• VS Code plugin support is a preview feature and may require enabling in settings.
• Codex plugin installation does not expose the repository's Copilot agent files, static handoffs, or host-specific LSP declarations.
• The available features depend on the agent host and its plugin capabilities.