🚀 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.
- 🚀 New Here? Start Here!
- 🔌 Compatibility & Invocation
- 📦 Features & Categories
- 🎁 Curated Collections (Bundles)
- 📚 Browse All Skills
- 🛠️ Installation
- 🧠 How to Use
- 📖 Agent Skills Documentation
- 🤝 How to Contribute
- ⚖️ License
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.
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:
- Extract high-value, task-oriented capabilities from Learn content
- Classify by purpose (limits, troubleshooting, configuration, architecture, etc.)
- 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
A short path to getting started — full installation details are in the 🛠️ Installation section below.
-
Clone the repo:
git clone https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/agent-skills.git
-
Copy the contents of the
skills/folder to your AI assistant's skills path (see 🛠️ Installation for the destination table and important notes). -
VS Code users: enable
chat.agent.skillsin Settings so the editor will load skills. -
Start coding — your AI assistant will automatically discover and use the installed skills.
Skills use progressive disclosure to efficiently load content only when needed:
- Level 1 - Discovery: Agent reads skill
nameanddescriptionfrom YAML frontmatter - Level 2 - Instructions: When triggered, agent loads the full
SKILL.mdcontent - 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.
These skills follow the Agent Skills open standard (SKILL.md format) and work with any AI coding assistant that supports agentic skills.
| AI Coding Assistant | Type | Skills Path / Location | How to Invoke |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Code | Anthropic CLI | .claude/skills/ |
Natural language, /skill-name |
| Gemini CLI | Google DeepMind | .gemini/skills/ |
Natural language |
| Codex CLI | OpenAI | .codex/skills/ |
Natural language |
| Antigravity IDE | DeepMind IDE | .agent/skills/ |
Agent mode, natural language |
| GitHub Copilot | VSCode Ext | .github/skills/ |
Natural language, @workspace |
| Cursor | AI-native IDE | .cursor/skills/ |
@skill-name in Chat |
| OpenCode | Open-source CLI | .agent/skills/ |
opencode run @skill-name |
| AdaL CLI | SylphAI Agent | .adal/skills/ |
Auto-load, natural language |
💡 Path Note:
~refers to your home directory:
- macOS/Linux:
~=/Users/yournameor/home/yourname- Windows:
~=%USERPROFILE%=C:\Users\yourname(use$HOMEin PowerShell)
💡 Tip: Most modern tools support
.agent/skills/as a universal path. For GitHub Copilot,.github/skills/is recommended per the Agent Skills specification.
The repository is organized by Azure service domains:
| Category | Skills | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| ☁️ Compute | 13 | Azure App Service, Azure Batch, Azure Cloud Services, Azure Cyclecloud, Azure Functions |
| 🔗 Integration | 16 | Azure API Center, Azure API Management, Azure Business Process Tracking, Azure Communication Services, Azure Data API Builder |
| 📊 Data & Analytics | 19 | Azure Analysis Services, Azure Cache Redis, Azure Cosmos Db, Azure Data Explorer, Azure Data Factory |
| 🤖 AI & ML | 23 | Azure AI Services, Azure AI Vision, Azure Anomaly Detector, Azure Bot Service, Azure Cognitive Search, Azure Foundry Classic, Azure Foundry Local, Microsoft Foundry |
| 🔒 Security & Identity | 19 | Azure Active Directory B2C, Azure Attestation, Azure Cloud Hsm, Azure Confidential Computing, Azure Confidential Ledger |
| 🌐 Networking | 23 | Azure Application Gateway, Azure Bastion, Azure DDoS Protection, Azure Dns, Azure Expressroute |
| 🏗️ Infrastructure | 52 | Azure Advisor, Azure AKS Edge Essentials, Azure API Management, Azure Arc, Azure Architecture, Azure Container Storage, Azure Elastic SAN |
| 💰 Management | 39 | Azure Advisor, Azure API Management, Azure Architecture, Azure Artifacts, Azure Automation |
| 🎮 Specialized | 26 | Azure AKS Edge Essentials, Azure API Management, Azure App Configuration, Azure App Service, Azure Communication Services |
Total: 193 skills across 19 categories ✓
Not sure where to start? We've created role-based skill bundles to help you get productive quickly.
👉 View Curated Bundles (docs/BUNDLES.md)
| Bundle | Description |
|---|---|
| 🚀 Quick Start | Absolute essentials for any Azure developer — master these 7 core services first |
| ⭐ Popular | Popular Azure services. The services that power most workloads |
| 🎯 Core | Core Azure essentials. The foundation every developer needs before specializing |
| 🤖 AI/ML Developer | For AI engineers and ML practitioners. Covers AI services, machine learning, and intelligent applications |
| 📊 Data Engineer | For data engineers and analytics professionals. Covers data integration, warehousing, and streaming analytics |
| 🏗️ Infrastructure Pro | For infrastructure engineers and cloud architects. Covers networking, backup, recovery, and resource management |
| 🔒 Security & Compliance | Secure Azure workloads with RBAC, policy, key management, and compliance |
| 🌐 DevOps & Automation | Automate deployments, monitoring, and infrastructure management |
| 🔗 Integration | Connect Azure services with API Management, Event Grid, Logic Apps, and Service Bus |
| ☁️ Full-Stack Azure | Complete coverage with architecture foundations |
💡 Recommended Path:
- Start with Quick Start Bundle
- Add Popular Bundle for broader coverage
- Choose specialized bundles based on your role
We've moved the complete skill registry to a dedicated catalog to keep this README clean.
👉 View the Complete Skill Catalog (docs/CATALOG.md)
| Skill | Description |
|---|---|
| All Azure Skills | Full list of all available Azure skills |
| Skill Descriptions | Skill descriptions and capabilities |
| Skill Files | Links to individual skill files |
| Directory | Purpose |
|---|---|
skills/ |
Production-ready skills for AI agents to consume |
products/ |
Scan results, raw data, and reporting artifacts |
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: Theproducts/directory is for internal pipeline use and contributor reference. End users only need theskills/directory.
Choose the installation path based on your preferred AI coding assistant.
⚠️ Note: This repository contains skills in theskills/subdirectory. Clone the repo first, then copy the skills to your target location.
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.gitCopy the contents inside the skills/ folder to your target location based on your AI assistant:
| AI Assistant | Project-level (in your repo) | Personal/Global (all projects) |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub Copilot | {your-project}/.github/skills/ |
~/.copilot/skills/ |
| Claude Code | {your-project}/.claude/skills/ |
~/.claude/skills/ |
| OpenAI Codex | {your-project}/.codex/skills/ |
~/.codex/skills/ |
| Cursor | {your-project}/.cursor/skills/ |
— |
| Gemini CLI | {your-project}/.gemini/skills/ |
— |
| Antigravity IDE | {your-project}/.agent/skills/ |
~/.gemini/antigravity/skills/ |
| OpenCode | {your-project}/.agent/skills/ |
~/.agent/skills/ |
| AdaL CLI | {your-project}/.adal/skills/ |
~/.adal/skills/ |
⚠️ Important: Copy the folders insideskills/(e.g.,azure-functions/,azure-container-apps/), NOT theskillsfolder 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$HOMEin PowerShell)- macOS/Linux:
/Users/yournameor/home/yourname
Enable Agent Skills in VS Code (Required for VS Code users):
Agent Skills is currently an experimental feature. You must enable it manually:
- Open VS Code Settings (
Ctrl+,on Windows/Linux,Cmd+,on macOS) - Search for
chat.agent.skills - Check the box for "Chat: Use Agent Skills"
⚠️ Important: Without this setting enabled, VS Code will not load or use any skills!
After copying, you can delete the cloned agent-skills repository if you no longer need it.
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_fetchto fetch complete documentation
Option 2: Web Fetch Tool
- Uses
fetch_webpageto retrieve content from documentation URLs
-
Ask about an Azure service:
How do I implement blue-green deployments in Azure Container Apps? -
The skill provides:
- Direct links to official Microsoft documentation
- Best practices from Microsoft Learn
- Architecture patterns and code examples
-
AI fetches documentation:
- The AI assistant uses MCP tools to fetch the latest content
- You get accurate, up-to-date guidance
Agent Skills is an open standard for giving AI agents new capabilities. Learn more about how each platform implements skills:
| Platform | Documentation | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Agent Skills Standard | agentskills.io | The open specification for SKILL.md format |
| GitHub Copilot | About Agent Skills | Skills for Copilot coding agent, CLI, and VS Code |
| VS Code Copilot | Agent Skills in VS Code | Using skills in VS Code with agent mode |
| Claude Code | Agent Skills Overview | Skills in Claude Code and Claude API |
| OpenAI Codex | Agent Skills | Skills for Codex CLI and IDE extensions |
| Repository | Description |
|---|---|
| anthropics/skills | Official Anthropic skills (DOCX, PDF, PPTX, XLSX) |
| openai/skills | OpenAI Codex skills catalog |
| github/awesome-copilot | Community collection for GitHub Copilot |
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]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.
This project uses a dual license:
- Documentation content: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License - See LICENSE
- Code: MIT License - See LICENSE-CODE
- Agent Skills Specification - The complete format specification
- Microsoft Learn Documentation
- Azure Architecture Center
- Azure Well-Architected Framework
azure azure-functions azure-container-apps agent-skills ai-coding github-copilot claude-code cursor openai-codex agentic-skills llm-tools microsoft-learn SKILL.md
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.
