magnus919_agent-skills/agent-skills/references/quickstart.md

Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://agentskills.io/llms.txt Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

Quickstart

Create your first Agent Skill and see it work in VS Code.

In this tutorial, you'll create a skill that gives an agent the capability to roll dice using a random number generator.

Prerequisites

• VS Code with GitHub Copilot

This tutorial uses VS Code, but Agent Skills are an open format. The same skill works in any compatible agent, including Claude Code and OpenAI Codex.

Create the skill

A skill is a folder containing a SKILL.md file. VS Code looks for skills in .agents/skills/ by default. Create .agents/skills/roll-dice/SKILL.md in your project:

---
name: roll-dice
description: Roll dice using a random number generator. Use when asked to roll a die (d6, d20, etc.), roll dice, or generate a random dice roll.
---

To roll a die, use the following command that generates a random number from 1
to the given number of sides:

```bash
echo $((RANDOM % <sides> + 1))
```

```powershell
Get-Random -Minimum 1 -Maximum (<sides> + 1)
```

Replace `<sides>` with the number of sides on the die (e.g., 6 for a standard
die, 20 for a d20).

That's it — one file, under 20 lines. Here's what each part does:

• name — A short identifier for the skill. Must match the folder name.
• description — Tells the agent when to use this skill. This is how the agent decides whether to activate it.
• The body — Instructions the agent follows when the skill activates. Here, the agent is instructed to generate a random number using a terminal command, substituting the number of sides from the user's request.

Try it out

1. Open your project in VS Code.
2. Open the Copilot Chat panel.
3. Select Agent mode from the mode dropdown at the bottom of the chat panel.
4. Type /skills to confirm that roll-dice appears in the list. If it doesn't, check that the file is at .agents/skills/roll-dice/SKILL.md relative to your project root.
5. Ask: "Roll a d20"

The agent should activate the roll-dice skill. It may ask for permission to run a terminal command — allow it. It will run the command and return a random number between 1 and 20.

Tool-use reliability varies across models — some follow skill instructions and run commands consistently, while others may attempt to answer on their own. If the agent responds without running a terminal command, try selecting a different model from the model dropdown.

How it works

Here's what happened behind the scenes:

1. Discovery — When the chat session started, the agent scanned default skill directories and found your skill. It read only the name and description, just enough to know when the skill might be relevant.

2. Activation — When you asked about rolling dice, the agent matched your question to the skill's description and loaded the full SKILL.md body into context.

3. Execution — The agent followed the instructions in the body, adapting the terminal command to the number of sides in your request.

This process uses progressive disclosure to let the agent access many skills without loading all their instructions up front.

Next steps

You've created a working Agent Skill. From here:

• Best practices — How to write skills that are well-scoped and effective.
• Optimizing skill descriptions — Test and improve your skill's description so it activates on the right prompts.
• Specification — The complete format reference for SKILL.md files.
• Example skills — Browse real-world skills on GitHub.