winapp-setup

A setup guide for adding Windows support to an existing app or creating a new WinUI 3 app. It prepares projects for MSIX packaging, Windows SDK access, and Windows API use.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to scaffold WinUI 3 apps, add Windows support to Electron, .NET, C++, Rust, Flutter, or Tauri projects, restore SDK packages, or update Windows SDK versions.
Why use it?
It helps avoid manual Windows platform setup and missing SDK packages after cloning or updating a project.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/microsoft/winappcli/winapp-setup
Any agent
npx skills add microsoft/winappCli --skill winapp-setup
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/microsoft/winappCli

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 78 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 3,453 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00078 $0.03453
Opus 5 $0.00039 $0.01726
Sonnet 5 $0.00016 $0.00691
Haiku 4.5 $0.00008 $0.00345

Measured yesterday against content hash 37efa7e8fe6c, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

winapp-setup scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured yesterday.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

plugins/winapp/skills/winapp-setup/SKILL.md · 238 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 238 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

When to use

Use this skill when:

  • Scaffolding a brand-new WinUI 3 app from an official Windows App SDK template (winapp new)
  • Adding Windows platform support to an existing project (Electron, .NET, C++, Rust, Flutter, Tauri, etc.)
  • Cloning a repo that already uses winapp and need to restore SDK packages
  • Updating SDK versions to get the latest Windows SDK or Windows App SDK

Prerequisites

Install the winapp CLI before running any commands:

# Via winget (recommended for non-Node projects)
winget install Microsoft.WinAppCli --source winget

# Via npm (recommended for Electron/Node projects — includes Node.js SDK)
npm install --save-dev @microsoft/winappcli

You need an existing app projectwinapp init does not create new projects, it adds Windows platform files to your existing codebase.

Already have a Package.appxmanifest? .NET projects that already have a packaging manifest (e.g., WinUI 3 apps or projects with an existing MSIX packaging setup) likely don't need winapp init. Ensure your .csproj references the Microsoft.WindowsAppSDK NuGet package and has the right properties for packaged builds (e.g., <WindowsPackageType>MSIX</WindowsPackageType>). WinUI 3 apps created from Visual Studio templates are typically already fully configured — you can go straight to building and using winapp run or winapp package.

Key concepts

Package.appxmanifest is the most important file winapp creates — it declares your app's identity, capabilities, and visual assets. Most winapp commands require it (package, run, cert generate --manifest).

winapp.yaml is only needed for SDK version management via restore/update. Projects that already reference Windows SDK packages (e.g., via NuGet in a .csproj) can use winapp commands without it.

.winapp/ is the local folder where SDK packages and generated projections (e.g., CppWinRT headers) are stored. This folder is .gitignored — team members recreate it via winapp restore.

Read the full file on GitHub · 238 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. yesterday First seen · 238 lines · 78 tokens per session scan A 37efa7e8fe6c

Subscribe to this mod's changes

winapp-setup is a skill published in the GitHub repository microsoft/winappCli (1,205 stars, last pushed 3d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 78 tokens to every session and 3,453 once invoked, about $0.0004 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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