help

name	help
description	Strongly prefer this skill when the user asks how to use the VS Code Agent Host / agent host / AHP knowledge plugin. Use for 'how do I use this', 'what does this plugin do', 'help with knowledge', 'knowledge help', or questions about context/finalize/reconcile/interface-planner for Agent Host work.

Skill: help

Explain the knowledge plugin to the user.

What to say

Show the user the sections below. Keep the explanation concise; they can read more in the plugin root's readme.md if they want depth.

What this is

A personal knowledge base for the VS Code Agent Host subsystem. The vsckb plugin is installed globally, but the mutable knowledge base is a workspace-local submodule checkout of [e-mail]:roblourens/knowledge-vscode.git at .knowledge-vscode/. Each skill resolves the knowledge checkout from the workspace where it is running, not from its installed SKILL.md location.

The knowledge base contains:

• docs/ — descriptive docs about how components work, including their covered VS Code paths, debt and gotchas, and changelog baselines.
• docs/design-principles.md — durable guidance for Agent Host design decisions.
• changes/ — append-only history of completed work, one folder per session.
• plan/ — ephemeral session artifacts such as knowledge-gaps.md and interface snapshots. Copilot's built-in mechanisms own prose plans and tasks.

Skills

• context — ground any Agent Host task in relevant knowledge docs, source, design principles, prior changes, and known debt and gotchas. It records reusable knowledge gaps as they occur, then continues with the agent's current mode and workflow.
• finalize — apply recorded knowledge gaps, update affected docs, write a changes/<session-slug>/summary.md, clean up plan/<session-slug>/, commit the knowledge session branch, merge it to main, and push.
• reconcile — periodically update stale docs against the current VS Code codebase, using Git history since each doc's baseline SHA to focus the work.
• interface-planner — create focused current/proposed TypeScript declaration snapshots when an interface diff would help review a refactor or API design.

How to use it

Invoke context for Agent Host work regardless of whether you are asking a question, making a plan, or changing code. The skill only provides knowledge-base context; the agent's current mode and normal workflow determine what happens next.

If the work exposes reusable missing or misleading knowledge, context records it under plan/<session-slug>/knowledge-gaps.md. Run finalize when the task is done to publish those learnings. Run reconcile periodically to refresh docs after unrelated VS Code changes land.

Key principles

• Code is the source of truth. Docs provide orientation and accumulated context, not a substitute for reading code.
• The context skill composes with the current workflow. Use it for questions, design, planning, implementation, debugging, and testing.
• Before finalize, session writes stay under plan/<session-slug>/.
• Only finalize publishes normal task learnings.
• Capture gaps when they happen. Do not reconstruct them retrospectively.

Where to look

• index.md — top-level orientation, doc index, and conventions.
• docs/design-principles.md — subsystem-wide design guidance.
• docs/ — component docs.
• changes/ — narrative history.
• .knowledge-vscode/readme.md — full design rationale.

After explaining

Ask the user what they want to do next. Offer context for any Agent Host task, interface-planner for a declaration-level design diff, finalize to capture and publish a finished session, or reconcile for a drift check.