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GitHub Copilot

Copilot reads Agent Skills from .github/skills/. Only agent surfaces (Chat, Workspace, Coding Agent) honor them — inline completions ignore skills.

Install

Terminal window
pnpm dlx @zakelfassi/skdd init --harness=copilot

Creates skills/skillforge/SKILL.md (canonical) + .skills-registry.md + .github/copilot-instructions.md with the skills block + .github/skills → ../skills symlink + .skdd-sync.json state.

Manual fallback:

Terminal window
mkdir -p skills/skillforge
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zakelfassi/skills-driven-development/main/skillforge/SKILL.md \
  -o skills/skillforge/SKILL.md
touch .skills-registry.md
mkdir -p .github && ln -s ../skills .github/skills

Configure

Copilot’s project-level instruction file is .github/copilot-instructions.md. skdd init writes:

## Skills


Skills live at `skills/<name>/SKILL.md` (canonical, single source of truth). The registry is at `.skills-registry.md` at the repo root. `.github/skills` is a mirror maintained by `skdd link` so Copilot can find skills at its conventional path.


Before working on any task, scan `.skills-registry.md` for a matching skill and follow it if one exists. When a pattern repeats or the user asks for a skill, invoke `skillforge` and follow its steps. Always write new skills to `skills/`, never to the mirror.

See docs.github.com/en/copilot/concepts/agents/about-agent-skills for Copilot’s own skill documentation.

Verify

Three-question check in Copilot Chat (not inline completion):

  1. “@workspace what skills are registered?”
  2. “@workspace forge a skill for rotating secrets.”
  3. (Open a fresh chat) “@workspace list skills.”

Inline completions are not skill-aware

Copilot’s ghost-text inline completions run on a smaller model that doesn’t load skills. If you want a skill to apply to inline completions, move its patterns into .github/copilot-instructions.md directly. Skills are for agent surfaces only.

GitHub-native integration

.github/skills/ is a GitHub-recognized path. GitHub Marketplace actions can read and publish skills from this directory, and GitHub’s own Agent Skills showcase indexes public repos that use it. Keep your SkDD colony at .github/skills/ if you want maximum discoverability in the GitHub ecosystem.

Troubleshooting

Copilot Chat doesn’t mention skills. Confirm that .github/copilot-instructions.md contains the ## Skills block and that Copilot’s “Use project instructions” setting is on. In VS Code, this is under Settings → Extensions → GitHub Copilot Chat.

Agent forges a skill but it lands in the wrong directory. Copilot’s skillforge wrapper may have detected the wrong scope. Re-prompt: “Write the skill to .github/skills/<name>/SKILL.md specifically.”