Sharing Skills: Claude Marketplace to VS Code Workspaces

You’ve built a skills catalog. Nested domains. Scripts that execute on demand.

Now the final question: How do you share this across your team?

Anthropic distributes skills through their marketplace and Skills API—portable, reusable knowledge packages.

GitHub Copilot doesn’t have a marketplace. But VS Code workspaces achieve the same outcome.

The Problem

Your .github/skills/ directory holds organizational standards, tested scripts, and domain expertise.

But you have multiple repositories—frontend apps, backend services, infrastructure, libraries.

Copy .github/skills/ into each? What happens when you update a script?

That doesn’t scale.

The Solution: Shared Repository + Workspaces

Create one repository holding all organizational skills. Every project references it.

The key insight: VS Code automatically merges .github/copilot-instructions.md files from all workspace folders.

Repository Structure

Create org-skills (or whatever you prefer):

org-skills/
├── README.md
├── .github/
│   ├── copilot-instructions.md
│   └── workflows/
│       └── validate-skills.yml
└── skills/
    ├── azure-devops/
    │   ├── index.md
    │   ├── pipelines.md
    │   ├── repos.md
    │   ├── work-items.md
    │   └── scripts/
    │       ├── get-related-work-items.ps1
    │       └── create-pr.ps1
    ├── aws/
    │   ├── index.md
    │   ├── ec2.md
    │   ├── s3.md
    │   └── scripts/
    ├── docker/
    │   ├── index.md
    │   ├── compose.md
    │   └── templates/
    ├── powershell/
    │   ├── index.md
    │   ├── standards.md
    │   └── modules.md
    └── react/
        ├── index.md
        ├── components.md
        └── patterns.md

This repository becomes your single source of truth.

Version control tracks changes. Teams contribute via PRs. CI validates scripts. Everyone uses the same versions.

VS Code Workspaces

VS Code merges .github/copilot-instructions.md files from all workspace folders. Add a folder, skills become available.

How It Works

Create a .code-workspace file in any project:

my-app.code-workspace:

{
  "folders": [
    {
      "name": "my-app",
      "path": "."
    },
    {
      "name": "org-skills",
      "path": "../org-skills"
    }
  ],
  "settings": {
    "github.copilot.enable": {
      "*": true
    }
  }
}

This workspace includes two folders: the current repository and org-skills.

Open the workspace, and GitHub Copilot reads both .github/copilot-instructions.md files and merges them.

The Shared Repo’s Copilot Instructions

In your org-skills repository, create .github/copilot-instructions.md:

# Organizational Skills

This repository contains organizational knowledge and standards.

## Available Skills

| Skill Name | Description | Path |
|------------|-------------|------|
| Azure DevOps | Work with Azure DevOps repos, pipelines, work items | `skills/azure-devops/index.md` |
| AWS | AWS services and patterns | `skills/aws/index.md` |
| Docker | Container standards and compose patterns | `skills/docker/index.md` |
| PowerShell | PowerShell coding standards | `skills/powershell/index.md` |
| React | React component patterns | `skills/react/index.md` |

Notice paths are relative to org-skills (skills/...), not absolute.

VS Code merges the instructions automatically. Organizational knowledge available, no copying.

Bootstrapping New Projects

When starting a new repository:

1. Clone the shared skills repo alongside your new project:

cd ~/projects
git clone https://github.com/your-org/my-new-app.git
git clone https://github.com/your-org/org-skills.git

1. Create a workspace file in my-new-app:

cd my-new-app
cat > my-new-app.code-workspace << 'EOF'
{
  "folders": [
    {
      "name": "my-new-app",
      "path": "."
    },
    {
      "name": "org-skills",
      "path": "../org-skills"
    }
  ]
}
EOF

1. Open the workspace:

code my-new-app.code-workspace

Done. The project has access to all organizational skills.

Updating Skills

Add or update a skill in org-skills, commit, and push. Every project pulls the latest:

cd ~/projects/org-skills
git pull

All workspaces referencing org-skills see the updates immediately.

What You’ve Built

Over these three parts, you’ve adapted Anthropic’s Skills concept for GitHub Copilot:

Part 1: Auto-discovery → Catalog pattern for navigation

Part 2: Nested structures and scripts → Adapted for the catalog

Part 3: Marketplace distribution → VS Code workspaces for sharing

A system for scaling AI context to hundreds of skills across dozens of repositories.

Your AI doesn’t need to know everything. It just needs to know where to look.

This approach adapts Anthropic Skills for GitHub Copilot. The core concepts—modular knowledge, on-demand loading, shareability—come from Anthropic’s design.

If you build a skills catalog, I’d love to hear about it. Find me on LinkedIn or open an issue on this blog’s GitHub repo.