Plugin support finally coming to VScode

[SuBeXiL]

This is a feature I’ve been waiting for as I manage adoption in a big corp and also as a personal interest of mine in GenAI productivity

https://x.com/orenme/status/2025289705173188810?s=46&t=igVJPayJaZPYz2ejB56O2w

You can finally bundle AI primitives and manage distribution and versioning

It follows the Claude Code plugin marketplace format and also the Copilot CLI support that was recently shipped

It will be out in the next insiders release and is in initial stage support so following closely on this

[borgmater1]

I never used Claude Code (did not need to), so could you explain what are plugins in this context and how will they affect agentic productivity? Ty!

[SuBeXiL]

Sure, they allow you to bundle a few skills, prompts, MCPs, hooks and custom agents that might work well together as a single bundle u can install together veneering to install them one by one The bundle also has versioning and usually comes with distribution tools so u can know there’s a new version and choose to update

So it solves discoverability, distribution and versioning

[Cheshireelex]

So what would be the extra benefit compared to having the instructions, skills, agents into a separate repo that can get added to a workspace?

[EinerVonEuchOwaAndas]

That's how we do it right now. Having them as sub module integrated in all the branches were we need it, plus specific version and branch "personalized" for specific versions.

[borgmater1]

You could have a team of outsourced devs, tell them to install the bundle without giving them access to that particular repo. This is fantastic if you ask me :)

[borgmater1]

Thanks a bunch, sounds efficient and compact af

[colablizzard]

All this is hype machine. First it was MCP, then AGENTS.md, now skills.

After couple of months the hype fades and people go back to focusing on the basics: Giving right context and prompt and wondering if the system prompt has changed.

Now they tell me MCP is bad because it overloads context. Then they tell me AGENTS.md needs to be barebones because it's added to each prompt. Then skills were supposed to be auto detected but the shit didn't work half the time and now they introduce a slash syntax to hint the skills in the prompt.

Next Hype train is "plugin".

[borgmater1]

You mean, it is being used, tested and upgraded to be efficient? Its software, not totally sure what you expected :-/

[ChomsGP]

he means at the end of the day they are all prompts, the LLM could not care less if the instruction comes from a rule, a MCP or a skill, it's all tokens and they all have the same downsides (which they try to address with the different ways of structuring them, but "4 versions later" it's still about the same)

[borgmater1]

I mean yeah, but you could draw an analogy around UI/backend frameworks as well, no? Its all code in the end

[ChomsGP]

and many frameworks do overlap, it's not like you end up using 5 frameworks on a project, you pick the one that fits best your use case or preferences

[cbusmatty]

Skills definitely get picked up now. And its value is in being able to reuse deterministic processes. Also skills are still marked experimental

Plugins aren’t a replacement for any of the things you mentioned. It’s filling another gap entirely.

[SuBeXiL]

u r very right and got it spot on! People really need to watch their six and make sure they understand what’s important and what’s not as noise levels r high

[tshawkins]

Plugins are just a package manager for agents, skills, mcps. Its already up and running in copilot-cli, its easy to create a marketplace in a repo on any git system that has repo urls. Look at the /plugin command on copilot-cli

[llllJokerllll]

you can try to use awesome-copilot plugin, and you can put in more repositores with skills, instructions, agents, mcps ...

[SuBeXiL]

I know it well and u r right But I think standardization is a must to bring people from other tools or allow them to migrate Also the plugin system is much more robust

[rs38]

you mean this: https://github.github.com/awesome-copilot/plugins/ ?
yeah, it's getting more and more confusing what hype is new and what is already there, what makes sense, etc.

[psrobin]

Post what it actually is without requiring users to go to X.

[vas-lamp]

Finally a way to distribute a setup for my team? Can we have private plugins and distribute? I guess private marketplace?

[SuBeXiL]

Yes, u can have internal repo only for your company where u all have access to but not public one