Skills & memory

Two complementary ways to give the assistant standing context: skills are reusable prompt presets you invoke on demand, and memory is long-term notes injected into every conversation automatically.

Skills

A skill is a reusable prompt preset invoked as /name in chat — the SPA expands it inline. Skills are stored as SKILL.md files using the GitHub Copilot CLI's format (YAML frontmatter with name / description, plus a markdown body of instructions), so they're interoperable across tools.

---
name: pr-review
description: Review a pull request diff for correctness and style
---

You are reviewing a pull request. Focus on correctness, edge cases, and
adherence to the project's conventions. Be concise and cite line numbers.

Where they live

The skills folder is resolved the way the CLI resolves its home: COPILOT_HOME → XDG_CONFIG_HOME/copilot → ~/.copilot, with a PRECURSOR_SKILLS_DIR override. Files live at <copilot_home>/skills/<name>/SKILL.md.

Discovery & enablement

The skills table is reduced to an enablement record: a discovered skill is disabled until you opt in, and if its file is renamed or deleted the enablement row is dropped. Skills authored by other tools show up in the Skills tab and can be enabled per skill. You can enable/disable, edit, export, and delete — all operating on the file.

Pre-existing Precursor skills created before this model keep working as legacy entries and gain a Migrate button that writes the SKILL.md and keeps the row as an enablement record.

Memory

Memory is long-term notes injected into the system prompt of topic chats, flat chats, and agent sessions — so standing preferences and facts follow you everywhere.

Manage memory three ways:

1. From Settings — edit the list directly.

2. From chat — slash commands:

   • /memory-store [kind] <content> — record a note.
   • /memory-list — list notes with their ids (needed for updates).
   • /memory-update <id> [kind] <content> — refine an existing note.

   Store/update work on the topic, chat, and agent surfaces (and headless scheduled topic runs); /memory-list is available on topic and chat.

3. By the model itself — via the built-in precursorMCP server tools store_memory, update_memory (gated by a memory_write toggle), and the read-only list_memories.

Skills vs memory

Use a skill for an instruction you invoke on demand (/pr-review). Use memory for a fact or preference you want applied to every conversation automatically ("Always answer in French", "Our default branch is main").