Microsoft's 99 .NET AI Skills Highlight the Bigger Problem of Missing Context

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Microsoft has open-sourced a repository of nearly 100 reusable AI skills covering common .NET development tasks, including ASP.NET Core, Entity Framework, testing, and project modernization. The skills allow compatible AI agents to automatically load relevant instructions, eliminating the need to re-explain workflows at the start of every new session. While the volume of skills drew attention, the more significant shift is the underlying concept of making AI context reusable and persistent. The release underscores a widely reported frustration among engineering teams: AI coding assistants understand programming languages well but lack knowledge of a specific organization's architecture, conventions, and business rules. This gap has prompted a broader conversation about how teams can package their own institutional knowledge into similar reusable formats for AI tools.

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