Aspire Skills

Aspire Skills is a plugin and skill pack for AI coding agents working on Aspire distributed applications.

It helps agents recognize Aspire workspaces, use the Aspire CLI correctly, and route common work to focused skills instead of falling back to ad hoc dotnet, curl, Docker, or shell workflows.

What's included

Skill	Purpose
aspire	Top-level router for Aspire projects
aspire-init	Creates a new Aspire project or adds an Aspire skeleton to an existing repo
aspireify	Wires an AppHost after aspire init
aspire-orchestration	Starts, stops, waits for, and manages Aspire resources
aspire-deployment	Publishes, deploys, and tears down Aspire apps
aspire-monitoring	Routes logs, traces, dashboard, telemetry, and diagnostics work

Install

Choose the path that matches your agent host.

Aspire CLI

Aspire's first-party agent setup installs Aspire skill files and MCP configuration into detected agent environments.

# Create a new Aspire app and opt into agent guidance when prompted
aspire new

# Or add Aspire to an existing repo and opt into agent guidance when prompted
aspire init

# Add, update, or reconfigure Aspire guidance in an existing workspace
aspire agent init

Agent plugins and extensions

# GitHub Copilot CLI
copilot plugin marketplace add microsoft/aspire-skills
copilot plugin install aspire@aspire-skills

# Claude Code CLI
claude
/plugin marketplace add microsoft/aspire-skills
/plugin install aspire@aspire-skills

# Codex CLI
codex plugin marketplace add microsoft/aspire-skills
# then open /plugins and install aspire

# Gemini CLI
gemini extensions install https://github.com/microsoft/aspire-skills

# Cursor CLI
mkdir -p ~/.cursor/skills
git clone https://github.com/microsoft/aspire-skills ~/.cursor/skills/aspire-skills
agent

# OpenCode
apm install microsoft/aspire-skills
opencode

# Ollama + Copilot CLI
ollama launch copilot
copilot plugin marketplace add microsoft/aspire-skills
copilot plugin install aspire@aspire-skills

skills.sh via NPX

Use the Skills-compatible installer when your agent host supports skills.sh-managed skill locations.

npx skills add microsoft/aspire-skills

For hosts that need an explicit skills directory and target agent, install from the skills/ folder:

npx skills add https://github.com/microsoft/aspire-skills/tree/main/skills \
  -a github-copilot -g -y

In that command, -a github-copilot selects the target agent, -g installs globally, and -y accepts prompts.

Repository layout

Path	Purpose
skills/	Source skill files, references, and evals
hooks/	Hook scripts used by supported agent hosts
.plugin/, .claude-plugin/, .cursor-plugin/	Plugin metadata for marketplaces
.github/plugins/aspire-skills/	Published plugin mirror
evals/	Shared evaluation fixtures and helpers

Development

npm run bundle

npm run bundle builds the published Aspire Skills plugin bundle.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for contribution guidelines.

License

MIT