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Agent Skills

Agent Skills give AI coding assistants relevant context for specific development tasks. The teams-dev skill is the go-to agent skill for Teams bot development. It gives AI coding assistants (Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, and others) relevant context to assist in developing Teams bots and use the Teams CLI to manage your bot infrastructure. Instead of running CLI commands manually, you describe what you want and your AI assistant handles the rest.

Alternative: Use llms.txt directly

If you'd rather not install a skill, you can provide the same context by pointing your AI tool to the llms.txt URL:

https://microsoft.github.io/teams-sdk/llms_docs/llms.txt

Install the teams-dev skill​

Add the marketplace (first time only):

/plugin marketplace add microsoft/teams-sdk

Install the skill:

/plugin install teams-sdk@teams-skills

After installing, restart GitHub Copilot for the skills to load.

What the skill covers​

The teams-dev skill guides your AI assistant through:

TaskWhat it does
Manage bot infrastructureRegister your bot with Teams, manage credentials, and update configuration
Develop Teams botBuild bot applications from scratch or add Teams capabilities to existing servers
Set up SSOEnable Single Sign-On so users can authenticate seamlessly without login prompts
TroubleshootDiagnose and resolve common bot setup and configuration issues

The skill does not cover hosting or deployment — it focuses on bot registration, development, and configuration.

Invoke the skill​

Using natural language:

  • "I need a chatbot for my team's standup meetings"
  • "Help me build a Teams bot that can answer FAQs"
  • "My bot won't load in Teams, can you help?"
  • "Add the ability to get user profile information to my bot"

The skill loads automatically when your agent detects a relevant request.

Direct invocation:

/teams-dev

Example session​

You: Help me create a Teams bot that echoes what I'm saying back to me

Agent: I'll create an echo bot for you.

       [checks teams CLI installation and authentication]
       [creates development tunnel: https://abc123.ngrok.io]
       [runs teams app create with endpoint]
       ✓ Bot registered, credentials saved to .env

       [runs teams project new typescript echo-bot -t echo]
       ✓ Bot code created in ./echo-bot

       [installs dependencies and starts bot server]
       ✓ Bot running at http://localhost:3978

       Your bot is ready! Install it in Teams:
       https://teams.microsoft.com/l/app/[app-id]

Requirements​

  • Teams CLI installed (npm install -g @microsoft/teams.cli@preview)
  • Node.js 20 or later
  • Microsoft 365 account with sideloading enabled