Microsoft Agent Skills

# Microsoft Agent Skills: setup notes

This kit holds setup notes written by Mindket. It does not contain the skills, the custom agents, the prompts, the AGENTS.md template or the MCP configs. Those install from Microsoft’s repository: https://github.com/microsoft/skills

License: MIT, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. Full text: https://github.com/microsoft/skills/blob/main/LICENSE

Microsoft Agent Skills is made by Microsoft. Mindket lists it and is not Microsoft. The README opens with a note that the repository is a work in progress under active development, with more skills being added and existing ones updated.

The pages these notes came from: the README (https://github.com/microsoft/skills/blob/main/README.md), the AGENTS.md template (https://github.com/microsoft/skills/blob/main/Agents.md), the Claude Code marketplace file (https://github.com/microsoft/skills/blob/main/.claude-plugin/marketplace.json), the azure plugin’s README and hook files under https://github.com/microsoft/skills/tree/main/.github/plugins/azure-skills, and about twenty SKILL.md files, among them azure-prepare, azure-validate, azure-deploy, microsoft-foundry, microsoft-docs, mcp-builder and skill-creator. The repository holds far more skills than Mindket read. Mindket copied every command and ran none of them.

## What it is

A library of skills, custom agents, prompts and MCP configurations for coding agents that work with Azure SDKs and Microsoft Foundry, Microsoft’s AI agent platform. The README gives more than one total for its skills, so Mindket gives none. A skill is a folder with a SKILL.md file of instructions that the agent reads when your request matches.

What the README groups them into:

- Core skills for tooling and infrastructure that need no one language: cloud-solution-architect, copilot-sdk, debugview, entra-agent-id, frontend-design-review, github-issue-creator, github-primer-brand, mcp-builder, podcast-generation and skill-creator.
- Foundry skills that work through the azd and az command line tools and the Foundry MCP server: a router skill named microsoft-foundry, and skills for projects, models, hosted agents, toolboxes, workflows, knowledge bases, managed skills, memory, observability and governance.
- One skill per Azure SDK package for each of five languages, named with a suffix: -py for Python, -dotnet for .NET, -ts for TypeScript, -java for Java and -rust for Rust. Examples are azure-identity-py, azure-cosmos-db-py and azure-ai-projects-py.
- Five role-based agent personas (backend, frontend, infrastructure, planner, presenter), four prompt templates, an AGENTS.md template and a reference file of MCP servers.

The README’s own warning: “Use skills selectively. Loading all skills causes context rot: diluted attention, wasted tokens, conflated patterns. Only copy skills essential for your current project.”

## The 13 plugins in the Claude Code marketplace file

| Plugin | What it holds (the marketplace file’s words, shortened) |
|---|---|
| deep-wiki | A wiki generator for code repositories, with Mermaid diagrams and source citations |
| azure | Azure MCP and skills for cloud resources, deployments and Azure services. The README says it is copied from microsoft/github-copilot-for-azure |
| azure-sdk-python | Azure SDK patterns for Python |
| azure-sdk-dotnet | Azure SDK patterns for .NET |
| azure-sdk-typescript | Azure SDK patterns for TypeScript and Node.js |
| azure-sdk-java | Azure SDK patterns for Java |
| azure-sdk-rust | Azure SDK patterns for Rust |
| azure-kusto-graph-skills | Kusto graph analysis, IRQL security hunting and graph visualization for Azure Data Explorer |
| azure-local-skills | Azure Local deployments, standard and multi-rack |
| foundry-iq-skills | Create and retrieve from a Foundry IQ knowledge base, then connect an agent |
| azure-cost | Azure cost analysis, estimation, optimization and governance |
| aks-skills | AKS troubleshooting, cost, known issues, GPU inference and packet capture |
| azure-advisor | Azure Advisor recommendations, service-retirement impact and remediation guidance |

Source: .claude-plugin/marketplace.json. The marketplace is named skills. The Copilot CLI’s marketplace file, .github/plugin/marketplace.json, lists these 13 plus a fourteenth, microsoft-foundry.

## Files in this kit

- setup/claude-code.md: the plugin lines, and a skills folder for Claude Code
- setup/github-copilot.md: the Copilot CLI lines and the .github/skills folder
- setup/other-agents.md: the npx skills wizard and the README’s copy and link lines
- setup/azure-plugin.md: what the azure plugin needs, installs and records
- setup/first-run.md: choosing few skills, the docs-first rule and the three Azure deploy skills

## What you need first

- A coding agent. The README names GitHub Copilot CLI and GitHub Copilot in VS Code, and its copy lines also cover Claude Code and OpenCode.
- Node.js, for the npx skills command. The azure plugin needs Node.js 22 or later.
- Git, for the manual route.
- For the azure plugin: an Azure account, and the Azure CLI signed in with az login. Its hooks run bash.
- For the deploy skills: the Azure Developer CLI (azd), since azure-deploy runs azd up or azd deploy. azure-validate runs a check script with pwsh (PowerShell), or with bash on macOS and Linux.
- For the Foundry skills: access to Microsoft Foundry. The README calls the Foundry agent platform a preview.

## What installs where

- npx skills: the skills you pick, in your agent’s skills folder.
- Plugins: the agent keeps the plugin’s files itself. Seven of the thirteen also carry Claude Code hooks and an .mcp.json file, though in aks-skills and foundry-iq-skills that file lists no server (setup/azure-plugin.md).
- Manual copy: the skill folders you copy, and nothing else.

## Your data

A skill is text and sends nothing by itself. The plugins are different:

- Seven plugins (azure, aks-skills, azure-advisor, azure-cost, azure-kusto-graph-skills, azure-local-skills and foundry-iq-skills) carry a hooks file for Claude Code that runs a track-telemetry script when a session starts and after each tool use. The azure plugin’s README documents the opt-out (setup/azure-plugin.md). Mindket read the azure plugin’s script only.
- The azure plugin starts the Azure MCP server with npx, and its README warns that npx inherits your .npmrc settings, so install it on trusted devices only.
- The language plugins azure-sdk-python, azure-sdk-dotnet, azure-sdk-typescript, azure-sdk-java and azure-sdk-rust, and deep-wiki, have no hooks file or MCP config in the repository.
- microsoft-foundry, in the Copilot marketplace file only, has no hooks file. Its .mcp.json starts the Azure MCP server with npx and connects to two remote servers, https://mcp.ai.azure.com and https://learn.microsoft.com/api/mcp.
- Whatever you give the agent, such as code and logs, goes to the agent’s own service as in any other session.

## Update and remove

The README gives no update or removal step. setup/claude-code.md says what Claude Code’s own docs give for a plugin.

README.md  7 KB
setup/azure-plugin.md  4 KB
setup/claude-code.md  3 KB
setup/first-run.md  4 KB
setup/github-copilot.md  2 KB
setup/other-agents.md  3 KB