copilot-skill-factory/README.md

🏭 Copilot Skill Factory

The meta-plugin that creates skills. Watches your GitHub Copilot CLI workflows and automatically turns them into reusable agent skills.

Built for GitHub Copilot CLI (v1.0.52+).

Inspired by hermes-skill-factory for Hermes Agent.

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What It Does

Every time you solve a problem with Copilot CLI, you're performing a workflow worth repeating. Skill Factory watches silently via hooks, detects patterns, and proposes reusable skills.

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🏭 SKILL FACTORY — New Pattern Detected
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You've repeated this workflow in 3 sessions:

  1. bash (git commands)
  2. grep (search code)
  3. edit (apply changes)
  4. bash (run tests)

Proposed Skill: git-edit-test
Status: Ready for review

Use /skill-factory review to inspect it.
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How It Works

Architecture

┌──────────────────────────────────────────┐
│            Copilot CLI Session            │
│                                          │
│  postToolUse ──┐    sessionEnd ──┐       │
│                ▼                  ▼       │
│         ┌─────────────┐  ┌─────────────┐ │
│         │  observer.js │  │  analyzer   │ │
│         │  (logs tools)│  │  (detects   │ │
│         └──────┬───────┘  │   patterns) │ │
│                │          └──────┬──────┘ │
│                ▼                 ▼        │
│         ┌─────────────────────────────┐  │
│         │     pattern-db.json         │  │
│         │  (cross-session patterns)   │  │
│         └─────────────┬───────────────┘  │
│                       ▼                  │
│         ┌─────────────────────────────┐  │
│         │   proposed/<name>/SKILL.md   │  │
│         │  (auto-generated skills)    │  │
│         └─────────────────────────────┘  │
└──────────────────────────────────────────┘

sessionStart ──► Injects notification about new skills

/skill-factory ──► User reviews & manages skills

Plugin Components

Component	File	Purpose
Manifest	plugin.json	Plugin metadata (name, version, hooks path)
Hooks config	hooks/hooks.json	Defines postToolUse, sessionEnd, sessionStart hooks
Observer	bin/observer.js	Main hook handler — logs, analyzes, notifies
Skill	skills/skill-factory/SKILL.md	/skill-factory slash command for user interaction

Detection Algorithm

1. postToolUse hook — Every successful tool call is fingerprinted (tool name + normalized args) and logged to a per-session JSONL file
2. sessionEnd hook — Analyzes the session using sliding windows (3-8 consecutive tool calls). Matching sequences across 2+ sessions are flagged as "patterns"
3. Auto-generation — Patterns seen in 2+ different sessions get a proposed SKILL.md generated automatically
4. sessionStart hook — Next session, the agent is notified about pending proposals via additionalContext
5. User review — The /skill-factory skill lets the user review, accept, edit, or dismiss proposals

Installation

Prerequisites

• GitHub Copilot CLI v1.0.52+ installed and authenticated
• Node.js 18+ (for the hook scripts)

Via Copilot CLI plugin install (recommended)

copilot plugin install droideparanoico/copilot-skill-factory

Then install the companion skill:

mkdir -p ~/.copilot/skills/skill-factory
cp skills/skill-factory/SKILL.md ~/.copilot/skills/skill-factory/

Manual installation

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/droideparanoico/copilot-skill-factory.git
cd copilot-skill-factory

# Install plugin
mkdir -p ~/.copilot/plugins/skill-factory
cp plugin.json ~/.copilot/plugins/skill-factory/
cp -r hooks/ ~/.copilot/plugins/skill-factory/
cp -r bin/ ~/.copilot/plugins/skill-factory/
chmod +x ~/.copilot/plugins/skill-factory/bin/observer.js

# Install companion skill
mkdir -p ~/.copilot/skills/skill-factory
cp skills/skill-factory/SKILL.md ~/.copilot/skills/skill-factory/

Then restart Copilot CLI.

Usage

Once installed, Skill Factory runs silently in the background. Use the slash command to interact:

Command	What it does
/skill-factory	Show available commands
/skill-factory review	Review proposed skills (accept/edit/dismiss)
/skill-factory propose	Force-analyze current session patterns
/skill-factory list	List all generated skills
/skill-factory status	Show detection statistics
/skill-factory save <name>	Save with custom name
/skill-factory dismiss <name>	Dismiss a proposal
/skill-factory clear	Reset all data

You can also tell Copilot naturally:

• "Review my skill factory proposals"
• "Save this workflow as a skill"
• "Turn this into a reusable skill"

Configuration

Skill Factory stores data in:

~/.copilot/skills/skill-factory/.data/
├── pattern-db.json          # Cross-session pattern database
└── sessions/
    └── <session-id>.jsonl   # Per-session tool call logs (kept for last 20 sessions)

Proposed skills are stored in:

~/.copilot/skills/skill-factory/proposed/
└── <skill-name>/
    ├── SKILL.md             # Generated skill definition
    └── .proposal.json       # Detection metadata

Limitations

• Not real-time: Patterns are analyzed at session end, not during the session
• Heuristic-based: Detection uses fingerprint similarity — similar but not identical workflows may not match
• No cross-device sync: Pattern database is local to each machine
• Windows: PowerShell hooks are not yet implemented (contributions welcome!)

Roadmap

• Real-time pattern suggestion during sessions
• Cross-device sync via GitHub Gist
• Pattern confidence scoring
• Automatic skill refinement (merge similar patterns)
• Web dashboard for pattern visualization
• Export/import pattern database

Comparison with hermes-skill-factory

Feature	hermes-skill-factory	copilot-skill-factory
Platform	Hermes Agent	GitHub Copilot CLI
Observation	In-process (Python plugin)	Hooks (external Node.js)
Detection	AI-assisted pattern analysis	Heuristic fingerprint matching
Skill format	SKILL.md + plugin.py	SKILL.md (Copilot agent skill)
User interaction	Inline prompt during session	Slash command + sessionStart context
Slash commands	/skill-factory propose, etc.	/skill-factory review, etc.

License

MIT