Copilot Skills let your team turn recurring instructions into reusable AI workflows. Instead of re-explaining the same task to Copilot every time, you save it once as a skill — then anyone on the project can run it on demand and get consistent results.
Skills capture your team's standards, governance rules, and review processes, so Copilot follows the same trusted approach across every project — from documentation and SQL generation to PII detection and model validation. Teach Copilot once, reuse it everywhere.
What a skill is
A skill is a saved, named instruction set for Copilot. It has three parts:
- Name — how the skill is identified and invoked. Names must be unique.
- Description — a short line describing what the skill does and when to use it. The description is shown when browsing skills, and it also helps Copilot decide when the skill fits a request you've typed.
- Instructions — the detailed guidance Copilot follows, written in Markdown.
Creating a skill
- Open Copilot and go to the Skills manager.
- Click New skill, or pick a template under Start from a template.
- Give the skill a name and a clear one-line description.
- Write the instructions in Markdown. Use the Edit and Preview tabs to see the formatted result as you write.
- Save.
Available templates:
- Scan for PII — flags columns that likely hold personal data and proposes compliance tags.
- Fill missing descriptions — finds tables and columns without descriptions and writes clear, concise ones.
- Summarize model — produces an overview of the model's objects, keys, descriptions, and metadata.
Templates pre-fill the editor with starter content you can tailor before saving.
Editing and deleting skills
Open any skill from the Skills manager to edit its name, description, or instructions, or to delete it. Use the search box to filter the list.
If you try to leave the editor with unsaved changes, you'll be asked to confirm first so work isn't lost by accident.
Running a skill
From the Copilot chat input, there are three ways:
- Type
/to open the skills menu. Filter by typing, move with the arrow keys, and select with Enter. - Click the Skills button next to the chat input and pick a skill from the list.
- Simply describe what you want. Copilot recognizes the intent and applies the matching skill.
Tip: if you describe a task and Copilot doesn't pick up your skill, the description is usually too vague. Rewrite it to say clearly what the skill does and when to use it — or invoke the skill explicitly with /.
Who can do what
- Creating, editing, and deleting skills requires edit access to the project.
- Running existing skills is available to anyone with access to the project.
Good to know
- Skills guide Copilot — they don't act on their own. A skill runs when you invoke it, and Copilot's proposals still go through you before anything is applied. Nothing changes in your model without your action.
- Skills don't run in the background or on a schedule.
- Skill names must be unique. A duplicate name is flagged on the name field and blocks saving.
- A skill run is a Copilot interaction and consumes AI credits like any other Copilot request.
- Skills replace project-level pre-prompts. If you previously used a pre-prompt, create a skill and paste your pre-prompt text into the instructions — you get the same behavior, plus naming, search, and on-demand invocation.
Writing skills that work well
- One skill, one job. "Write column descriptions in our house style" works better than one giant skill that does everything.
- Put your actual standards in the instructions. Paste your naming conventions, description style rules, or tagging policy directly — the more concrete the instructions, the more consistent the output.
- Invest in the description. It's how teammates find the skill and how Copilot matches it to typed requests.
- Use examples. A short "good example / bad example" pair in the instructions noticeably improves consistency.