How to install Agent Skills in GitHub Copilot

Sources: About agent skills and Adding agent skills for GitHub Copilot. Read on 4 October 2026.

Where skills go

GitHub's docs list two kinds:

• Project skills, stored in your repository: .github/skills, .claude/skills or .agents/skills
• Personal skills, shared across your projects: ~/.copilot/skills or ~/.agents/skills

Each skill gets its own subdirectory, with a lowercase hyphenated name, and a file named exactly SKILL.md inside it. The SKILL.md needs name and description in its front matter.

Install one skill by hand

git clone https://github.com/proskillpacks/skills
mkdir -p .agents/skills
cp -r skills/skills/ecommerce/shopify-policy-checker .agents/skills/

Commit it so the Copilot cloud agent can use it in that repository.

GitHub CLI

The "About agent skills" page says you can use gh skill in GitHub CLI to discover and install skills from GitHub repositories. We did not check the exact gh skill syntax, so see the official docs for the command.

Or use the npx command

npx skills add proskillpacks/skills -a github-copilot

Limits

• GitHub's pages describe Copilot's cloud agent and a Copilot CLI page. Which Copilot surfaces in your editor read these folders is not something we verified. The docs are the authority.
• We read the docs and did not run Copilot for this page.

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Free skills and prompts for GitHub Copilot: skills that work with GitHub Copilot.