Skills of LLM

Skills of LLM is a VS Code extension for browsing, previewing, editing, and creating GitHub Copilot skill files.

It is designed around the day-to-day workflow of using SKILL.md files, not just storing them in a repository.

What It Does

• Shows personal and project skills in a dedicated Skills sidebar
• Opens skill markdown in a readable preview by default from the skills tree
• Provides a one-click Edit action to switch from preview to normal text editing
• Creates new skills with a guided wizard
• Adds syntax highlighting, diagnostics, and snippets for SKILL.md
• Optionally creates an Explorer mirror folder (.!SKILLS) for native file access

Main Workflow

Browse Skills

Open the Skills activity bar icon to see:

• Personal Skills from ~/.copilot/skills
• Workspace skills from .github/skills or .copilot/skills

Each skill folder shows its files as a tree. Clicking a markdown file opens the preview directly.

Preview First, Edit When Needed

The extension is optimized for preview-first reading:

• Clicking a skill markdown file in the Skills tree opens preview
• The preview window includes an Edit button in the top-right corner
• Hovering files in the Skills tree shows an edit action for normal text editing

If you enable the Explorer mirror folder, markdown files under .!SKILLS also open in preview by default.

Create New Skills

Use the + button in the Skills view, or run Skill Preview: New Skill.

The wizard will:

1. Ask whether the skill should be created in personal or workspace scope
2. Ask for the skill folder name
3. Ask for display name and description
4. Generate a ready-to-edit SKILL.md

Features

Skills Sidebar

• Dedicated Activity Bar entry for skills
• Personal and workspace sources grouped separately
• Auto refresh when files change
• Vendor-aware icons for well-known skill names
• Inline edit action on file items

Preview Webview

• Renders frontmatter in a readable table
• Renders markdown body as formatted HTML
• Includes an Edit button for switching to plain text editing
• Opens in the active editor column instead of split view

Syntax Highlighting

Files named SKILL.md or ending with .skill.md get:

• YAML frontmatter highlighting
• Markdown highlighting for the body
• File icons for supported skill markdown files

Diagnostics

The extension reports common authoring problems:

• Missing frontmatter delimiters
• Missing required name
• Missing required description
• Unknown frontmatter fields

Snippets

Available in SKILL.md and markdown skill files:

• skill
• skill-min
• ## when
• ## produces
• ## steps
• ## policy

Settings

Explorer Mirror Folder

If skill-preview.disableExplorerSkillMirrorFolder is set to false, the extension creates:

.!SKILLS/
	Local Skills/
	Project Skills/

This gives you a native Explorer entry point to skill files while keeping the dedicated Skills sidebar available.

Skill File Format

Typical example:

---
name: my-skill
description: 'Short description shown in the skill picker'
argument-hint: 'What context to provide when invoking'
user-invocable: true
disable-model-invocation: false
---

# My Skill

## When To Use

Describe when the skill should be selected.

## What This Skill Produces

- Expected outputs

## Steps

1. Step one
2. Step two
3. Step three

Install

Install the packaged extension from a .vsix, or install it from your distribution channel.

Use Cases

• Review skills without switching into raw markdown immediately
• Maintain personal skills and project-specific skills in one place
• Author new skills with validation and snippets
• Keep workspace skills readable for teammates