Copilot Lab plugin
A reference plugin for the GitHub Copilot Up skilling lab.
Important
A plugin folder sitting inside a repository is not discovered or loaded. VS
Code and Copilot CLI install plugins from a marketplace or a Git URL into
~/.copilot/installed-plugins/. This copy is here so you can see the anatomy
without installing anything.
To actually install a plugin from source:
- VS Code — run
Chat: Install Plugin From Sourceand give it a Git URL - CLI —
copilot plugin install PLUGIN-NAME@MARKETPLACE-NAME
Anatomy
| Path | Portable | What it contributes |
|---|---|---|
plugin.json | yes | Manifest. The $schema value is what marks this as Agent Plugins 1.0 |
skills/release-notes/SKILL.md | yes | A skill, identical in format to a repo-level one |
mcp.json | yes | MCP servers that start when the plugin is enabled |
com.github.copilot/agents/ | no | Copilot-specific custom agent |
Skills and MCP servers are part of the open standard, so any compatible agent picks them up. Agents, hooks and slash commands are client-specific, so they live under a reverse-domain namespace that other clients ignore. That is how one package stays portable while still shipping Copilot-only capabilities.
The point
Everything in this plugin could have been loose files in .github/. Packaging
them means a colleague runs one install command instead of copying four folders
and hoping they landed in the right place.