Agent Plugins in VS Code.

VS Code is listed by the Agent Plugins project as a compatible client. For portable Agent Plugins 1.0 packages, VS Code supports Agent Skills and MCP servers over stdio, Streamable HTTP, and legacy SSE transports.

VS Code also recognizes Copilot, Claude, and legacy OpenPlugin formats. Those formats may add custom agents, hooks, or slash commands, but those capabilities are client-specific rather than portable Agent Plugins 1.0 components.

Use a current VS Code release with agent plugin support enabled. The chat.plugins.enabled setting can be controlled by an organization, so a managed environment may require an administrator even when the package itself is valid.

Before trusting a repository, inspect its publisher, license, manifest, Skills, scripts, MCP commands, remote endpoints, and requested credentials. Installation makes plugin components available to the agent; it is not a security review.

To browse configured marketplaces, open the Extensions view and search for @agentPlugins, or open Chat: Open Customizations and choose the Plugins tab. Select a package, inspect its source, and choose Install.

To install directly from a public repository, run Chat: Install Plugin From Source from the Command Palette and enter the repository URL. For a manually cloned package, register its directory through chat.pluginLocations instead of copying files into an undocumented internal cache.

Open the Agent Plugins - Installed view or the Plugins tab in Agent Customizations and confirm the expected package is enabled. Skills should appear in the Configure Skills menu. Plugin MCP servers should appear in MCP: List Servers and their tools in Configure Tools.

Start with a harmless, read-only task. Confirm that the expected Skill is selected, that no unexpected server or hook starts, and that credentials remain in client-managed storage rather than package files.

First check chat.plugins.enabled and any organization policy. Then verify that plugin.json is at a recognized root, the declared name follows its format rules, and a portable package uses the canonical 1.0 schema URL.

If a Skill is skipped, confirm that SKILL.md uses valid YAML frontmatter, that its name is kebab-case, and that the directory name matches. For MCP failures, inspect the exact transport, executable, arguments, working directory, and environment requirements instead of disabling safety controls.