Microsoft Skills

microsoft’s official repo for grounding coding agents via skills, MCP servers, and AGENTS.md files.

what it does

provides a standard way to define what your coding agents can do. instead of each agent having its own proprietary skill system, microsoft is shipping an interface that works across agents.

why it matters

this is microsoft saying: AGENTS.md is infrastructure now. not a fringe pattern. not a research experiment. the standard.

the assumption baked in: you already have agents running. the question is how to tell them what they’re allowed to do.

who it’s for

anyone building or running coding agents and needs a standardized way to define capabilities, permissions, and context.

the shift

from: “my agent has plugins”
to: “my agents read a skills file”

plugins are controlled by the company that made the agent. skills are controlled by you.