Aspire Skills

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

It helps agents recognize Aspire workspaces, use the Aspire CLI correctly, route common work to focused skills instead of ad hoc dotnet, curl, Docker, or shell workflows, and surface focused visual tools for Aspire-specific tasks.

What's included

Skills

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 a new AppHost or extends an existing application graph
aspire-project-v2-migration	Assesses and migrates eligible Aspire 13.6+ legacy project resources to Project v2 after explicit edit approval
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
aspire-terminals	Authors resource/dock/dialog/headless terminals, reuses REPLs, and automates terminal input and VHS-subset tapes

aspire-terminals covers Aspire 13.5 resource terminals and capability-gated 13.6 terminal services, prompts, REPLs and tape playback. Its tape reference documents Aspire's supported VHS syntax and plain-text output formats, not all upstream VHS features.

Extensions

Extension	Purpose
aspire-doctor	Visualizes aspire doctor environment checks, suggested fixes, and detected CLI installations
aspireify	Presents Aspireify findings and the proposed resource plan for confirmation before AppHost edits
aspire-apphosts	Workspace and Global AppHost workbench

Install

Choose the path that matches your agent host.

Aspire CLI

Aspire's first-party agent setup installs Aspire skill files and extension files into detected agent environments. Aspire MCP server configuration is separate and opt-in.

• In Aspire 13.6 and later, the agent setup that aspire new and aspire init run preselects the recommended repository-local skills, including aspireify. It doesn't offer MCP configuration.
• Standalone aspire agent init keeps an MCP choice that's off by default. It doesn't configure MCP in non-interactive runs unless you pass --mcp.

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

aspire new

Add Aspire to an existing repository and opt into agent guidance when prompted:

aspire init

Add, update, or reconfigure agent guidance in an existing Aspire workspace:

aspire agent init

Configure the Aspire MCP server only when you want it (Aspire 13.6+):

aspire agent init --mcp

In Aspire 13.5, run aspire agent init interactively and select the MCP server option; 13.5 has no --mcp flag.

The generated skills bundle selects aspire-terminals by default alongside aspire, aspireify and aspire-deployment. Shipping this in Aspire also requires refreshing the CLI's embedded aspire-skills archive and metadata in microsoft/aspire, and aligning AspireSkillsInstaller with the published bundle version. Repository changes alone do not update an installed CLI's embedded skills; verify aspire agent init selection with the refreshed CLI before release.

GitHub Copilot app

The GitHub Copilot app plugin installs Aspire skills and canvas extensions for the current user.

Prerequisites:

• GitHub Copilot app installed.
• A GitHub Copilot subscription (paid or free).

Install the plugin:

1. Click this link to automatically open the Settings > Plugins window in the GitHub Copilot app.
2. In the Add plugin marketplace? dialog, select Allow.
3. The Plugins window opens with the microsoft/aspire-skills marketplace. Select Add marketplace.
4. Expand the aspire-skills entry and select Install on the aspire plugin.

GitHub Copilot CLI

Start Copilot CLI with copilot, then run the following commands inside it.

Add the marketplace (first time only):

/plugin marketplace add microsoft/aspire-skills

Install the plugin:

/plugin install aspire@aspire-skills

Update the plugin:

/plugin update aspire@aspire-skills

Claude Code

Start Claude Code with claude, then run the following commands inside it.

Add the marketplace (first time only):

/plugin marketplace add microsoft/aspire-skills

Install the plugin:

/plugin install aspire@aspire-skills

Update the plugin:

/plugin update aspire@aspire-skills

Gemini CLI

Install the extension:

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

Cursor CLI

Install the skills:

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

Start Cursor CLI:

agent

Codex CLI

Add the marketplace (first time only):

codex plugin marketplace add microsoft/aspire-skills

Install the plugin:

Start Codex with codex, run /plugins, and install aspire from the aspire-skills marketplace.

OpenCode

Install using APM, then start OpenCode:

apm install microsoft/aspire-skills
opencode

Skill catalogs

As an alternative to APM, configure OpenCode to load the skills directly from an HTTP catalog. Add the configuration for your OpenCode version to opencode.json or opencode.jsonc, preserving any existing settings.

OpenCode V2:

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