--- title: Discover Agent Skills from MCP servers in .NET | daily.dev description: Microsoft's Agent Framework for .NET now supports discovering and loading Agent Skills directly from Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers via the... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/discover-agent-skills-from-mcp-servers-in-net-p74piswto twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Discover Agent Skills from MCP servers in .NET | daily.dev og:description: Microsoft's Agent Framework for .NET now supports discovering and loading Agent Skills directly from Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers via the... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/discover-agent-skills-from-mcp-servers-in-net-p74piswto og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/P74PISWto.png og:image:alt: Discover Agent Skills from MCP servers in .NET og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Discover Agent Skills from MCP servers in .NET **[DevBlogs](https://daily.dev/sources/devblogs)** · 7 min read · 7 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Microsoft's Agent Framework for .NET now supports discovering and loading Agent Skills directly from Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers via the `Microsoft.Agents.AI.Mcp` NuGet package. Instead of bundling skills in each application, agents connect to a central MCP server and pull skills on demand. Skills can be distributed as individual `skill-md` resources or as packaged archives (ZIP/TAR). The feature enables centralized authoring and versioning of domain knowledge (expense policies, compliance workflows, etc.) that all agents pick up without redeployment. Archive extraction includes configurable safety guardrails against decompression bombs, oversized payloads, and excessive file counts. Local and MCP-sourced skills can be composed in the same provider, and integration with Microsoft Foundry Toolbox is supported out of the box. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How do I load Agent Skills from an MCP server in .NET instead of bundling them with my app? You install the Microsoft.Agents.AI.Mcp NuGet package (currently prerelease), connect an McpClient to the server, and call UseMcpSkills(client) on an AgentSkillsProviderBuilder. The agent then discovers skills advertised via the server's skill://index.json document and loads full instructions only when a task matches, using the same builder API whether skills are served as skill-md resources or as archives. _Developers wiring agents into MCP skill servers can track Microsoft Agent Framework updates like this on daily.dev._ ### How do I safely serve Agent Skills as a downloadable archive without risking disk or memory exhaustion? Set bounds via AgentMcpSkillsSourceOptions: ArchiveMaxSizeBytes caps the downloaded archive size, ArchiveMaxUncompressedSizeBytes caps the total unpacked size to guard against decompression bombs, and ArchiveMaxFileCount caps how many files an archive may contain. Any archive exceeding these limits is skipped, and scripts inside archives are never executed automatically, requiring approval via run_skill_script. _Teams distributing AI agent skills over MCP can follow these archive-safety patterns via daily.dev._ ### Can I combine local file-based skills with skills pulled from a remote MCP server in the same .NET agent? Yes, because UseMcpSkills adds a source to the AgentSkillsProviderBuilder rather than replacing existing ones, you can chain UseFileSkill for team-owned local skills with UseMcpSkills for shared server-hosted skills in the same provider, letting a single agent carry its own skills while also pulling centrally governed ones on demand. _Anyone architecting mixed local and remote skill sources for agents can follow this pattern on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [From Specialist Agents to Distributed Skills over MCP](https://daily.dev/posts/from-specialist-agents-to-distributed-skills-over-mcp-wfvftosfo) · DevBlogs · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [MCP & Skills for AI agents](https://daily.dev/posts/mcp-skills-for-ai-agents-oqh2e5dc6) · Daily Dose of Data Science \| Avi Chawla \| Substack · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [MCP servers vs. skills: Choosing the right context for your AI](https://daily.dev/posts/mcp-servers-vs-skills-choosing-the-right-context-for-your-ai-zvdsezrz1) · Red Hat Developer · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [MCP Tool Integration in Microsoft Agent Framework in C\#](https://daily.dev/posts/mcp-tool-integration-in-microsoft-agent-framework-in-c--9hfnimogq) · We Are .NET · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#ai-agents](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-agents), [#.net](https://daily.dev/tags/.net), [#mcp](https://daily.dev/tags/mcp) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/discover-agent-skills-from-mcp-servers-in-net-p74piswto) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Discover Agent Skills from MCP servers in .NET","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/discover-agent-skills-from-mcp-servers-in-net-p74piswto","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/discover-agent-skills-from-mcp-servers-in-net-p74piswto"},"datePublished":"2026-07-28T09:04:55.457Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T08:30:30.931Z","description":"Microsoft's Agent Framework for .NET now supports discovering and loading Agent Skills directly from Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers via the...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/8a3c1b661c099c026acc3bb5d9ff2188?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/8a3c1b661c099c026acc3bb5d9ff2188?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"DevBlogs","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"DevBlogs","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/8f68b453325f482ebeb73fb780092713","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/devblogs"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/discover-agent-skills-from-mcp-servers-in-net-p74piswto","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":7},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"ai-agents,.net,mcp","timeRequired":"PT7M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"DevBlogs","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/devblogs"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Discover Agent Skills from MCP servers in .NET"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/discover-agent-skills-from-mcp-servers-in-net-p74piswto#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"How do I load Agent Skills from an MCP server in .NET instead of bundling them with my app?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"You install the Microsoft.Agents.AI.Mcp NuGet package (currently prerelease), connect an McpClient to the server, and call UseMcpSkills(client) on an AgentSkillsProviderBuilder. 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