Introducing Skills in Azure API Center

anishta

Microsoft

Mar 26, 2026

How teams can register, organize, and discover reusable AI capabilities — and govern what AI agents are allowed to invoke.

The problem

Modern applications depend on more than APIs. A single AI workflow might call an LLM, invoke an MCP tool, integrate a third-party service, and reference a business capability spanning dozens of endpoints. Without a central inventory, these assets become impossible to discover, easy to duplicate, and painful to govern.

Azure API Center — part of the Azure API Management platform — already catalogs models, agents, and MCP servers alongside traditional APIs. Skills extend that foundation to cover reusable AI capabilities.

What is a Skill?

As AI agents become more capable, organizations need a way to define and govern what those agents can actually do. Skills are the answer.

A Skill in Azure API Center is a reusable, registered capability that AI agents can discover and consume to extend their functionality. Each skill is backed by source code — typically hosted in a Git repository — and describes what it does, what APIs or MCP servers it can access, and who owns it.

Think of skills as the building blocks of AI agent behavior, promoted into a governed inventory alongside your APIs, MCP servers, models, and agents.

Example: A "Code Review Skill" performs automated code reviews using static analysis. It is registered in API Center with a Source URL pointing to its GitHub repo, allowed to access your code analysis API, and discoverable by any AI agent in your organization.

How Skills work in API Center

Skills can be added to your inventory in two ways: registered manually through the Azure portal, or synchronized automatically from a connected Git repository. Both approaches end up in the same governed catalog, discoverable through the API Center portal.

Option 1: Register a Skill manually

Use the Azure portal to register a skill directly. Navigate to Inventory > Assets in your API center, select + Register an asset > Skill, and fill in the registration form.

Figure 2: Register a skill form in the Azure portal.

The form captures everything needed to make a skill discoverable and governable:

Field	Description
Title	Display name for the skill (e.g. Code Review Skill).
Identification	Auto-generated URL slug based on the title. Editable.
Summary	One-line description of what the skill does.
Description	Full detail on capabilities, use cases, and expected behavior.
Lifecycle stage	Current state: Design, Preview, Production, or Deprecated.
Source URL	Git repository URL for the skill source code.
Allowed tools	The APIs or MCP servers from your inventory this skill is permitted to access. Enforces governance at the capability level.
License	Licensing terms: MIT, Apache 2.0, Proprietary, etc.
Contact information	Owner or support contact for the skill.

Governance note: The Allowed tools field is key for AI governance. It explicitly defines which APIs and MCP servers a skill can invoke — preventing uncontrolled access and making security review straightforward.

Option 2: Sync Skills from a Git repository

For teams managing skills in source control, API Center can integrate directly with a Git repository and synchronize skill information automatically. This is the recommended approach for teams practicing GitOps or managing many skills at scale.

Figure 3: Integrating a Git repository to sync skills automatically into API Center.

When you configure a Git integration, API Center:

Creates an Environment representing the repository as a source of skills
Scans for files matching the configured pattern (default: **/skill.md)
Syncs matching skills into your inventory and keeps them current as the repo changes

For private repositories, a Personal Access Token (PAT) stored in Azure Key Vault is used for authentication. API Center's managed identity retrieves the PAT securely — no credentials are stored in the service itself.

Tip: Use the Automatically configure managed identity and assign permissions option when setting up the integration if you haven't pre-configured a managed identity. API Center handles the Key Vault permissions automatically.

Discovering Skills in your catalog

Once registered — manually or via Git — skills appear in the Inventory > Assets page alongside all other asset types. Linked skills (synced from Git) are visually identified with a link icon, so teams can see at a glance which skills are source-controlled.

From the API Center portal, developers and other stakeholders can browse the full skill catalog, filter by lifecycle stage or type, and view detailed information about each skill — including its source URL, allowed tools, and contact information.

Figure 4: Skills catalog in API Center portal, showing registered skills and the details related to the skill.

Developer experience: The API Center portal gives teams a self-service way to discover approved skills without needing to ask around or search GitHub. The catalog becomes the authoritative source of what's available and what's allowed.

Why this matters for AI development teams

Skills close a critical gap in AI governance. As organizations deploy AI agents, they need to know — and control — what those agents can do. Without a governed skill registry, capability discovery is ad hoc, reuse is low, and security review is difficult.

By bringing skills into Azure API Center alongside APIs, MCP servers, models, and agents, teams get:

A single inventory for all the assets AI agents depend on
Explicit governance over which resources each skill can access via Allowed tools
Automated, source-controlled skill registration via Git integration
Discoverability for developers and AI systems through the API Center portal
Consistent lifecycle management — Design through Production to Deprecated

API Center, as part of the Azure API Management platform and the broader AI Gateway vision, is evolving into the system of record for AI-ready development. Skills are the latest step in that direction.