| name | backend-integrate |
| description | Fetch downstream service context from a GitHub repo and execute a backend integration into your current service — fetches relevant files via gh CLI, asks clarifying questions, creates a plan, and runs it in fleet mode. Use when a developer wants to integrate or call a downstream service into their backend. |
backend-integrate — Downstream Service Integration Skill
This skill gives Copilot everything it needs to plan and execute a backend service integration. You point it at a downstream service's GitHub repo, tell it which context file to read, and it fetches the right files, asks the right questions, and builds the integration for you in parallel.
Prerequisites
GitHub CLI (gh)
The plugin uses gh for all GitHub access. If gh is not installed, the agent will detect your OS and install it automatically. But if you'd rather do it yourself:
macOS
brew install gh
No Homebrew? Install it first:
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
brew install gh
Linux (Debian/Ubuntu)
type -p curl >/dev/null || apt-get install curl -y
curl -fsSL https://cli.github.com/packages/githubcli-archive-keyring.gpg \
| dd of=/usr/share/keyrings/githubcli-archive-keyring.gpg
chmod go+r /usr/share/keyrings/githubcli-archive-keyring.gpg
echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/githubcli-archive-keyring.gpg] \
https://cli.github.com/packages stable main" \
| tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/github-cli.list > /dev/null
apt-get update && apt-get install gh -y
Linux (Fedora/RHEL/CentOS)
dnf install 'dnf-command(config-manager)' -y
dnf config-manager --add-repo https://cli.github.com/packages/rpm/gh-cli.repo
dnf install gh --repo gh-cli -y
Linux (Arch)
pacman -S github-cli
Windows
Option 1 — winget (Windows 10 1709+ / Windows 11, recommended):
winget install --id GitHub.cli
Option 2 — Chocolatey:
choco install gh
Option 3 — Scoop:
scoop install gh
Option 4 — MSI installer:
Download from github.com/cli/cli/releases/latest
After installing, authenticate:
gh auth login
Follow the prompts — choose GitHub.com → HTTPS → authenticate via browser.
How to invoke
Just describe what you want to integrate naturally:
Integrate the payment service from github.com/acme/payment-svc — use INTEGRATION.md for context, I need to add checkout support
I need to call the notification service (github.com/org/notify-svc, context file: DOWNSTREAM.md) to send order confirmation emails
Add support for the inventory service — repo is github.com/org/inventory, integration guide is docs/INTEGRATION.md
What Copilot will do
- Fetch context — downloads the specified
.md context file and scans the repo for relevant files (proto definitions, OpenAPI specs, client examples, env config, data models) using gh CLI
- Analyze — reads all fetched files and synthesizes the integration surface: endpoints, auth mechanism, required config, data models
- Ask clarifying questions — confirms your language/framework, patterns, error handling approach, and test requirements before writing any code
- Create a plan — produces a file-level integration plan broken into parallel tasks for review
- Execute in fleet mode — launches parallel agents to implement the client, service layer, config, DI wiring, and tests simultaneously
- Clean up — removes all temporary files from
~/.agents/session/<uuid>/ automatically
Session cleanup
All temporary files are stored in ~/.agents/session/<uuid>/ during the integration session and deleted automatically when context extraction is complete. Nothing is written to your repo until the plan is approved.
