About plugins for GitHub Copilot-CLI

Plugins are installable packages that extend GitHub Copilot-CLI with reusable agents, skills, hooks, and integrations.

Wer kann dieses Feature verwenden?

GitHub Copilot CLI is available with all Copilot plans. If you receive Copilot from an organization, the Copilot CLI policy must be enabled in the organization's settings.

In diesem Artikel

Plugins provide a way to distribute custom CLI functionality. You can use a plugin to add a preconfigured set of capabilities to Copilot-CLI.

What is a plugin?

  • A distributable package that extends Copilot-CLI's functionality.
  • A bundle of components in a single installable unit.

What plugins contain

A plugin can contain some or all of the following components:

  • Custom agents — Specialized AI assistants (*.agent.md files in agents/)
  • Skills — Discrete callable capabilities (skills subdirectories in skills/, containing a SKILL.md file)
  • Hooks — Event handlers that intercept agent behavior (a hooks.json file in the plugin root, or in hooks/)
  • MCP server configurations — Model Context Protocol integrations (a .mcp.json file in the plugin root, or an mcp.json file in .github/)
  • LSP server configurations — Language Server Protocol integrations (an lsp.json file in the plugin root, or in .github/)

Why use plugins?

Plugins provide the following benefits:

  • Reusability across projects
  • Team standardization of CLI configuration
  • Share domain expertise (for example, by providing the skills of a Rails expert, or a Kubernetes expert)
  • Encapsulate complex MCP server setups

Where can I get plugins?

You can install plugins from:

  • A marketplace
  • A repository
  • A local path

A marketplace is a location where developers can publish, discover, install, and manage plugins. It's a bit like an app store—but for plugins.

Examples of marketplaces include:

For more about adding marketplaces and installing plugins from them, see Finding and installing plugins for GitHub Copilot-CLI.

Plugins compared with manual configuration

Any functionality that you could add with a plugin, you could also add by configuring Copilot-CLI manually—for example, by adding custom agent profiles or MCP servers. However, plugins provide several advantages over manual configuration:

FeatureManual configuration in a repositoryPlugin
ScopeSingle repositoryAny project
SharingManual copy/paste/plugin install command
VersioningGit historyMarketplace versions
DiscoverySearching repositoriesMarketplace browsing

Further reading