Install Skills for Fabric

This article explains how to install, configure, and update Skills for Fabric by using GitHub Copilot CLI, Claude Code, or other compatible AI coding tools.

Important

Skills for Fabric ships as two separate plug-ins from the same marketplace: the Fabric collection (fabric-skills) and the Power BI plug-in (powerbi-authoring). The Fabric collection doesn't include the Power BI plug-in. For full coverage, install both as shown in Install with GitHub Copilot CLI or Claude Code.

Prerequisites

The following prerequisites apply to both the Fabric collection and the Power BI plug-in:

Permission to access the Fabric workspace and perform the operations you request.
An AI coding tool, such as GitHub Copilot CLI, Claude Code, Visual Studio Code, Cursor, Windsurf, or another AGENTS.md compatible tool.
Node.js: Required for the standalone GitHub Copilot CLI, which installs as an npm package (npm install -g @github/copilot). For full setup steps, see Set up GitHub Copilot CLI.
PowerShell 7: Required for GitHub Copilot CLI. Verify with pwsh --version.
Git: Required to clone skill repositories for tools that don't use the plugin marketplace.
Azure CLI: Most Fabric operations require Azure authentication. After installing, sign in with az login.

The Power BI plug-in (powerbi-authoring) has these extra prerequisites:

A Power BI tenant with permission to create, edit, and publish semantic models and reports.
Power BI Desktop (recommended) for opening and validating PBIX or PBIP projects locally.

Install with GitHub Copilot CLI or Claude Code

Both GitHub Copilot CLI and Claude Code use the same plugin marketplace workflow. Install both the Fabric collection and the Power BI plug-in for complete coverage.

Add the Skills for Fabric marketplace:

/plugin marketplace add microsoft/skills-for-fabric

Install the Fabric collection. For focused bundles, see Installation bundles.
```
/plugin install fabric-skills@fabric-collection
```
Install the Power BI plug-in. This bundle is separate from fabric-skills.
```
/plugin install powerbi-authoring@fabric-collection
```
Quit and restart your tool to load the skills:
```
/quit
```
Verify the installation:
```
/skills
```

Install with other AI tools

For Cursor, Windsurf, Codex, and similar tools, clone the Skills for Fabric repository. The root-level configuration files (CLAUDE.md, .cursorrules, .windsurfrules, AGENTS.md) are automatically detected when you clone the repository into your project folder.

Installation bundles

A bundle is a preconfigured group of skills packaged for the plugin marketplace. Instead of installing skills one at a time, pick a bundle that matches your role or workflow and install the entire group with a single command. Skills for Fabric offers the following bundles so you can install only the skills you need:

Bundle	Description	Install command
`fabric-skills`	Complete bundle: all skills for authoring, consumption, operations, migration, and end-to-end architecture. Doesn't include `powerbi-authoring`.	`/plugin install fabric-skills@fabric-collection`
`fabric-authoring`	Developer skills for REST APIs, CLI automation, notebooks, T-SQL, KQL, Dataflows Gen2, Eventstreams, and semantic models	`/plugin install fabric-authoring@fabric-collection`
`fabric-consumption`	Read-only exploration and query skills across all Fabric workloads	`/plugin install fabric-consumption@fabric-collection`
`fabric-operations`	Performance and health diagnostics	`/plugin install fabric-operations@fabric-collection`
`powerbi-authoring`	Power BI plug-in: semantic model authoring, report planning, design, authoring, management, and PBIP workflows. Install separately from `fabric-skills`. For an example of an included skill, see the Power BI Report Authoring skill.	`/plugin install powerbi-authoring@fabric-collection`

You can filter the full bundle by workload in GitHub Copilot CLI or Claude Code using the following commands:

/plugin install fabric-skills@fabric-collection --filter "sqldw-*"
/plugin install fabric-skills@fabric-collection --filter "spark-*"
/plugin install fabric-skills@fabric-collection --filter "eventhouse-*"

Example prompts for common scenarios

After installing a Skills for Fabric bundle, open your AI coding tool and try one of the following prompt examples. Modify the workspace and item names to match your environment.

Analyze data and generate a PDF report

I have New York City taxi trips in a data warehouse called DemoDW,
in a workspace called FabricCLIDemo. Analyze the data and produce
a PDF report of key indicators for every month (average trip
duration, average trip fare, number of trips). Include outlier
analysis across months, and a 3-month forecast. Save the results
as a PDF.

Document a workspace

Document my Fabric Workspace: take a look at the workspace called
FabricCLIDemo. Document the data solution, the role of each
item, the lineage, and what happens in each item with my
data. Look at notebooks, pipelines, views, stored procedures, and
semantic models. Write all results to a WorkspaceReport folder in
Markdown format.

Build a Medallion Architecture

Use Microsoft Fabric skills to design a medallion architecture
for NYC taxi data. Download all data dictionaries and trip data for
2025. Create clean tables following the dimensional model with fact
and dimension tables. Create an aggregate reporting view in the SQL
endpoint. Generate a Power BI semantic model definition with
dimensions, facts, and relationships. Before deploying, ask me
which workspace to use.

Build an interactive dashboard

NYC Taxi Trips data is in the DemoDW warehouse of the
FabricCLIDemo workspace. Generate an interactive Python
dashboard that connects to the warehouse using ODBC, takes into
account month, day of week, and time of day, and tells me where
to pick up customers to maximize tips. When done, launch the app.

Tip

Consider asking Copilot to plan before execution. Use Shift+Tab to move to planning mode, where you enter your prompt. After you're satisfied with the plan, switch back and ask the agent to start executing. Empirically, results are better when the AI plans first.

Update skills

GitHub Copilot CLI and Claude Code check for plug-in updates automatically when you install or reinstall a bundle. To manually refresh a bundle, uninstall and reinstall it:

/plugin uninstall fabric-skills@fabric-collection
/plugin install fabric-skills@fabric-collection

Repeat for powerbi-authoring@fabric-collection if you have it installed.

Common issues and resolutions

Issue	Cause	Resolution
`copilot` command not found	GitHub Copilot CLI isn't installed or isn't on PATH.	Install GitHub Copilot CLI, then close and reopen PowerShell 7. Verify with `copilot --help`.
Plugins don't install correctly	PowerShell version is too old. GitHub Copilot CLI requires PowerShell 7.	Run `pwsh --version` to verify PowerShell 7 is installed. Ensure your terminal profile launches `pwsh`, not `powershell.exe`.
Marketplace add fails or repo is inaccessible	Not authenticated with the correct GitHub account.	Authenticate with your GitHub account and verify you can access the Skills for Fabric repo in a browser. Relogin to Copilot CLI.
No skills appear after marketplace add	Copilot session wasn't restarted, or the plugin wasn't activated.	Run `/quit`, restart Copilot, then run `/plugin marketplace browse fabric-collection` and `/plugin install fabric-skills@fabric-collection`.
Skills installed but not being invoked	Skills are disabled, the prompt is too vague, or skill autoselection didn't trigger.	Run `/skills` to verify skills are enabled. Use explicit prompts that mention your Fabric workspace, warehouse, or lakehouse. Try explicit invocation with `/fabric-skills:<skill-name>`.
Actions occur in the wrong workspace	Workspace wasn't specified in the prompt.	Always specify workspace explicitly. Add "Before making any changes, ask me which workspace to use" to your prompt.
Plugin update not reflected	Cached plugin version is still active.	Restart Copilot CLI. If still stale, uninstall and reinstall the plugin as shown in Update skills.
Workspace creation or capacity permission errors	Insufficient permissions on the Fabric capacity, or the capacity is paused.	Verify you have Contributor or Admin permissions on the target capacity. In the Azure portal, check that the capacity is in an Active (Resumed) state.

Caution

Use caution with the /yolo command (which allows the AI to execute actions without confirmation) when provisioning or deploying resources. Start with Plan mode to validate the plan summary before switching to Autopilot mode.

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Last updated on 2026-06-30