azure-functions-help

Azure Functions Skills

Azure Functions context for your coding agent. The plugin provides skills, Azure MCP configuration, and telemetry hooks for GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, and Codex.

What & why

Azure Functions Skills equips your coding agent with Functions-specific knowledge — trigger/binding patterns, language anti-patterns, runtime versions, deployment best practices — so the agent gives accurate guidance instead of generic advice.

It is focused on Azure Functions. For deployment of any Azure resource (Functions or otherwise), it delegates to Azure Skills via the azure-functions-deploy skill. The two packages complement each other — see docs/skills-vs-azure-skills.md for the role split.

Prerequisites

Node.js 20+ is necessary for the telemetry hooks and the companion CLI. Everything else (Azure CLI, Core Tools, language runtimes) is checked and guided by the azure-functions-setup skill when environment verification is needed.

Quick Start

1. Install the plugin with your coding agent

Choose your coding agent and follow its install steps:

GitHub Copilot CLI

Start an interactive Copilot session with copilot, then run:

/plugin marketplace add Azure/azure-functions-skills
/plugin install azure-functions-skills@azure-functions-skills

GitHub Copilot app

1. Open Settings (the gear icon), then select Plugins.
2. Select Install to open the plugin installer, then add Azure/azure-functions-skills as a marketplace.
3. Select azure-functions-skills, review its contents, and confirm the installation.

GitHub Copilot in VS Code (Preview)

1. Enable the chat.plugins.enabled setting. Your organization may manage this setting.

2. Add this marketplace to your user settings.json:

   {
     "chat.plugins.marketplaces": [
       "Azure/azure-functions-skills"
     ]
   }
   

3. Open the Extensions view (Ctrl+Shift+X or Cmd+Shift+X), search for @agentPlugins, and install azure-functions-skills.

VS Code also discovers plugins installed by GitHub Copilot CLI. See Agent plugins in VS Code for more options.

Claude Code

Start an interactive Claude Code session with claude, then run:

/plugin marketplace add Azure/azure-functions-skills
/plugin install azure-functions-skills@azure-functions-skills

Codex CLI

Add this repository as a plugin marketplace from your terminal:

codex plugin marketplace add Azure/azure-functions-skills

Then start Codex, run /plugins, select azure-functions-skills, and choose Install plugin.

The @azure/functions-skills npm package provides the companion CLI and the telemetry sender. Installing it does not install or launch a coding-agent plugin.

2. Verify your prerequisites

Ask your coding agent to run the azure-functions-setup skill. It checks the required Azure Functions tools and language runtimes, then guides you through installing or configuring anything that is missing.

3. Ask for Azure Functions help

Ask which Azure Functions workflow to use. azure-functions-help discovers the installed azure-functions-* skills and routes to the best match.

More options? See CLI Reference for every command, flag, and headless example.

Companion CLI

The npm package includes a small CLI. The telemetry hooks use it to send events. You can also use it to list and apply Azure Functions templates:

npx @azure/functions-skills template list --language typescript
npx @azure/functions-skills template apply --template <id> --dir ./my-app

Telemetry

Azure Functions Skills collects usage telemetry to understand which bundled skills and Azure Functions MCP tools are used. Events include allowlisted skill/tool names, relative allowlisted Azure Functions skill-file paths, client name, session id, and timestamp. Telemetry does not include file contents, prompts, raw tool arguments, credentials, or absolute paths. Events are sent by the @azure/functions-skills package directly to the Azure Functions team's Application Insights resource; the package does not use Azure MCP as a telemetry destination or transport.

Deployment observation event

A second event, azure_deployment_observed, records an approximate, categorical view of successful Azure deployment work observed through the azure-functions-deploy and azure-functions-hosted-skills skills after a supported azd up or standalone azd provision. It carries only seven categorical properties: skill, operation (deploy or provision), result (constant success), resourceTypes (a sorted, de-duplicated list of Microsoft resource-provider types such as microsoft.web/sites), deploymentKind (function-app or hosted-agent), agent (normalized client, or unknown), and skillsVersion (or unknown). The mechanism only observes a successful deployment; it cannot prove a skill caused it.

To confirm success and derive the resource-type breakdown, the collector reads the named Azure Resource Manager deployment's state using your existing Azure CLI sign-in. The azd environment name (which is the deployment name), subscription, resource group, and deployment IDs are sent to Azure Resource Manager only to perform that lookup. They are not included in the telemetry event and are not printed. The event contains no customer names, identifiers, secrets, paths, environment values, or correlation IDs.

The same opt-out mechanisms apply unchanged (see below); when telemetry is disabled the collector performs no ARM queries and sends nothing.

This is an adoption/observation trend, not exact accounting. Phase 1 limitations are intentional and disclosed:

• The collector looks up the subscription-scope ARM deployment by the environment name and validates it against a bounded 30-minute recency window. The environment name is required for a usable observation, but a missing or invalid name is a valid skip, not an input error: the collector returns skipped before any Azure query. A deployment older than the window or a resource-group-scope deployment also records nothing. Selecting by name makes cross-deployment misattribution unlikely, but re-running after another deployment that reuses the same environment name still refers to the newest deployment of that name.
• Duplicate collector calls are possible; there is no exactly-once delivery, no durable de-duplication, and no exact funnel or conversion rate.
• Only supported azd/Bicep paths for the two canonical skills emit; plain CLI create, Terraform, and unrelated skill use do not.

Application telemetry content is categorical, but HTTPS necessarily exposes the client's network address to the receiving service. This does not promise anonymous transport; the receiving Application Insights service's privacy policy and IP handling apply.

To opt out, set either AZURE_FUNCTIONS_SKILLS_COLLECT_TELEMETRY=false or AZURE_MCP_COLLECT_TELEMETRY=false in the environment.

Skills

For contributor guidance on the product boundary between Azure Skills and Azure Functions Skills, see Azure Skills and Azure Functions Skills Boundary.