Custom skills, agents, and MCP servers in usage metrics API
By Steven Van ·
Enterprise and organization Copilot reports now list custom skills, agents and MCP servers by name, with up to 25 entries per record instead of five.
Copilot usage metrics now report the names of an organization's own skills, custom agents, Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, slash commands and plugins. Previously, GitHub grouped them under other or custom. The usage metrics REST API change builds on the agentic CLI customization metrics released in September.
What changed in the reports
- Named entries: In enterprise and organization reports, the totals_by_skill, totals_by_custom_agent, totals_by_mcp, totals_by_slash_cmd and totals_by_plugin arrays show the configured name of a customer-defined item. This applies to per-user 1-day and 28-day reports, aggregated 1-day reports, and day_totals in aggregated 28-day reports.
- More entries: Each totals_by_* list now holds up to 25 entries per record, up from five. Any remaining activity is combined into a trailing other entry.
- Unchanged counts: interaction_count and the distinct_*_use_count fields are calculated as before.
GitHub says administrators can use the names to see which internal skills, custom agents and MCP servers developers actually use, track adoption after rolling out a new one, and focus enablement where it is needed.
Where names are reported from
Names come from Copilot CLI (interactive sessions and prompt mode), the GitHub Copilot app, Agent Client Protocol (ACP) integrations such as JetBrains, and the Copilot SDK. Prompt mode, the app and ACP integrations need Copilot CLI 1.0.97 or later. The Copilot SDK needs v1.0.21 or later. IDEs report names when their agent experiences run on Copilot SDK v1.0.21 or later. Names are not reported from an IDE's built-in chat telemetry.
Limits to know about
- Names are reported as configured, trimmed and limited to 128 characters. Names that look like file paths stay grouped under other or custom. GitHub advises reviewing names before sharing reports outside the organization.
- The metrics come from client telemetry and can undercount activity, for example when clients are outdated or telemetry is blocked. GitHub recommends using them for trends and adoption rather than exact accounting.
- Names appear starting with report days processed after this release. Earlier days still show other or custom.
