squad-help

name	squad-help
description	How to actually use Squad — Squad is a custom Copilot agent (invoked via the task tool with agent_type='Squad'), not a skill. This file explains the right invocation paths for setting up a team, listing squad commands, and initializing Squad in a new project.
allowedTools	[]
confidence	high
domain	squad-onboarding

Skill: squad-help

Quick reference. If you're reading this because a user said "use squad" or "squad" or "set up a squad", you're in the right place — read on for the correct invocation paths.

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Squad is a custom agent, not a skill

The Squad framework registers a custom Copilot CLI agent at .github/agents/squad.agent.md. The agent is named Squad and its description is "Your AI team. Describe what you're building, get a team of specialists that live in your repo."

Copilot CLI agents and skills are different things:

Thing	How to invoke	Example
Skill	skill(name) tool call or natural-language match	skill(squad-commands)
Agent	task tool with agent_type=<name>	task(name="...", agent_type="Squad", prompt="...")
Slash command	Built-in CLI keyword	/agent, /skills, /mcp

Calling skill(Squad) will fail with "Skill not found: Squad" because Squad is the agent, not a skill. (/squad as a slash command also does not exist — only built-in CLI keywords like /agent, /skills, /mcp are slash commands. There's no way to map a skill name to a slash command without a Copilot CLI feature change.)

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How to actually use Squad

Pick the path that matches the user's intent:

A) Invoke the Squad coordinator agent (most common)

The Squad coordinator orchestrates a team of specialists. It routes work to the right agent, scaffolds a team if none exists, and enforces handoffs.

task(
  name="<short-task-name>",
  agent_type="Squad",
  prompt="<what you want the team to do>"
)

Use this when the user says things like:

• "Use Squad to build X"
• "Set up an AI team for this project"
• "Have the Squad coordinator design Y"
• "Spawn Squad" / "Squad, help me with ..."

B) See what Squad commands exist

The squad-commands skill is a categorized catalog of common Squad operations. The coordinator presents it as an interactive menu.

Trigger by natural-language match: "squad commands", "what can squad do", "show me squad options", "slash commands", "what commands are available".

Use this when the user says things like:

• "What can Squad do?"
• "Show me the squad commands"
• "squad help"

C) Initialize Squad in a fresh project

squad init is a shell command, not a tool call. The user runs it in their terminal in a project that has no .squad/ directory yet.

squad init

Do not try to invoke this from inside an existing Copilot session — .squad/ is already initialized if you're reading this file.

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What NOT to do

• ❌ Do not call skill(Squad), skill(squad), or skill(squad-coordinator) — Squad is not a skill.
• ❌ Do not type /squad expecting a slash command — slash commands are CLI keywords, not skill names. Use /agent (browse) or invoke the Squad agent via the task tool.
• ❌ Do not call task(agent_type="Squad", …) for tiny tasks the current agent can handle directly. Squad is for work that needs orchestration; trivial edits do not.

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How this skill was discovered

This skill ships from the Squad SDK templates and is wired into MANIFEST_SKILL_NAMES. It lives at .copilot/skills/squad-help/SKILL.md so the Copilot CLI's /skills loader picks it up alongside the other bundled Squad skills.

If you removed this skill on purpose, the model will fall back to its own reasoning and may make the lookup mistakes described above.

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See also

• .github/agents/squad.agent.md — the actual Squad coordinator agent
• .copilot/skills/squad-commands/SKILL.md — the command catalog
• .copilot/skills/squad-conventions/SKILL.md — conventions for working on the Squad codebase itself
• .copilot/skills/squad-version-check/SKILL.md — version-stamping mechanics