skills: what it is, how to install & alternatives

by microsoft · MCP Server · ★ 3.1k

Last updated: · Indexed by AgentSkillsHub · Auto-synced every 8h

🔒 Is skills safe to install? View the security audit →

About skills

Agent Skills [!NOTE] Work in Progress — This repository is under active development. More skills are being added, existing skills are being updated to use the latest SDK patterns, and tests are being expanded to ensure quality. Contributions welcome! Skills, custom agents, AGENTS.md templates, and MCP configurations for AI coding agents working with Azure SDKs and Microsoft AI Foundry. Blog post: Context-Driven Development: Agent Skills for Microsoft Foundry and Azure 🔍 Skill Explorer: Browse all 132 skills with 1-click install Quick Start Select the skills you n

How to install skills

npx skills add microsoft/skills
git clone https://github.com/microsoft/skills.git

Taken from the project's README on GitHub. Check the security audit before running it.

Security audit verdict: SAFE · quality 68/100

No red flags found in any of the 11 categories — no credential harvesting, no data exfiltration, no curl-pipe-shell installer. Scanned against the SlowMist agent-security taxonomy, refreshed every 8 hours. Full audit →

agent-skillsagentsazurefoundrymcpsdkskills

Quick Facts

Stars3,115
Forks350
LanguageTypeScript
CategoryMCP Server
LicenseMIT
Quality Score67.7336193265984/100
Open Issues76
Last Updated2026-10-14
Created2026-01-16
Platformsmcp, node
Est. Tokens~23k

skills alternative? Top 6 similar tools

Looking for a skills alternative? If you're comparing skills with other mcp server tools, these 6 projects are the closest alternatives on Agent Skills Hub — ranked by topic overlap, star count, and community traction.

  • AI-Gateway by Azure-Samples · ⭐ 986

    Labs to explore AI Models, MCP servers, and Agents with the AI Gateway powered by Azure API Management and Mic

  • Generative-Media-Skills by SamurAIGPT · ⭐ 4.3k

    Multi-modal Generative Media Skills for AI Agents (Claude Code, Cursor, Gemini CLI). High-quality image, video

  • claude-code-plugins-plus-skills by jeremylongshore · ⭐ 2.7k

    471 plugins, 3,069 skills, 347 agents for Claude Code. Open-source marketplace at tonsofskills.com with the cc

  • mcp-gateway-registry by agentic-community · ⭐ 981

    Enterprise-ready MCP Gateway & Registry that centralizes AI development tools with secure OAuth authentication

  • Agent-Skills by MicrosoftDocs · ⭐ 775

    Curated Agent Skills for Microsoft & Azure – giving AI coding assistants structured, real-time expertise from

  • memU by NevaMind-AI · ⭐ 14.5k

    Personal memory across agents

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is skills?

skills is Skills, MCP servers, Custom Agents, Agents.md for SDKs to ground Coding Agents. It is categorized as a MCP Server with 3.1k GitHub stars.

What programming language is skills written in?

skills is primarily written in TypeScript. It covers topics such as agent-skills, agents, azure.

How do I install or use skills?

The README on GitHub (github.com/microsoft/skills) gives: npx skills add microsoft/skills , then git clone https://github.com/microsoft/skills.git. Usage details are in the same README.

What license does skills use?

skills is released under the MIT license, making it free to use and modify according to the license terms.

What are the best alternatives to skills?

The top alternatives to skills on Agent Skills Hub include AI-Gateway, Generative-Media-Skills, claude-code-plugins-plus-skills. Each offers a different approach to the same problem space — compare them side-by-side by stars, quality score, and community activity.

How this security grade is produced

Grades come from a rule-based scan built on the SlowMist agent-security taxonomy, covering 11 red-flag categories including credential harvesting, data exfiltration, and curl | sh installers. It is a first-layer scan, not a manual audit — we say so rather than overstate it.

The scale of the problem is documented independently: Liu et al. (2026), in a study of 31,132 agent skills, report that 26.1% contain security vulnerabilities. Our own full-catalog census is published as a citable open dataset.

Sources & who's responsible:

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