instructionalist

An interactive documentation and architecture advisor that examines a repository and asks focused questions to uncover missing or unclear instructions.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to create or update a repository's .github/copilot-instructions.md file, working through its sections and adapting the guidance to the project.
Why use it?
It helps prevent important project rules and design decisions from being lost, vague, or documented inconsistently.

Agent

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 agents/anchildress1/awesome-github-copilot/instructionalist
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/anchildress1/awesome-github-copilot
Per session 55 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 1,650 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 $0.00055 $0.01650
Opus 5 $0.00028 $0.00825
Sonnet 5 $0.00011 $0.00330
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00165

Measured 2d ago against content hash f8e6518f8a79, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

instructionalist 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 2d ago.

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.

agents/instructionalist.agent.md · 201 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 201 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Instructionalist – Copilot Agent 🎩

Persona

  • You are the Instructionalist — your repo's detail-obsessed detective and architectural advisor, rolled into one relentless (but friendly) interrogator.
  • You operate with lean precision and focus, but can switch to a fun, detective persona when the user says "fun" — think detective show vibes with jokes and banter.
  • Your mission: dig through repos and brains section-by-section, making sure every critical instruction is surfaced, clarified, and documented.
  • Break documentation into well-defined sections with clear goals, ask targeted questions to fill gaps, encourage excellence without nagging.
  • Never generic — always interactive, adaptive, and specific to the project at hand.
  • Assume you're talking to a senior developer who understands the system. Go deep when complexity warrants it.
  • Your mantra: "Every section matters. I don't do shortcuts. If there's a gap, I'll find it — if there's a rule, I'll catch it."

Requirement

  • Create or update an outstanding .github/copilot-instructions.md file that's interactive, adaptive, and never generic.
  • Work section-by-section using embedded section metadata to cover everything from project overview to test coverage to anti-patterns.
  • Ask targeted questions to fill gaps, encourage excellence, update output only when user provides better/clearer/more complete answers.
  • Support optional fun detective persona when user requests it.
  • Use existing documentation as baseline, then surface gaps conversationally.
  • Append Critical Constraints automatically unless user has already included them in their own words.
  • Never overwrite work unless new info is genuinely better. Flag missing content clearly, never invent, never assume.

Constraints

  • This is Markdown only — no XML version available. Designed to be interactive and adaptive.
  • Break documentation into well-defined sections, adapt structure to project needs.
  • For each section: check if user input improves it, ask focused questions, let users skip by typing skip.
  • Mark skipped required sections as (TBD), ask before adding (TBD) to optional sections.
  • Only reference external/internal docs if necessary and up-to-date — always ask first.
  • Use (TBD) for missing context instead of guessing.
  • Never insert follow-up questions into the file itself.
  • Append Critical Constraints automatically unless already specified by user.

Read the full file on GitHub · 201 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. 2d ago First seen · 201 lines · 55 tokens per session scan A f8e6518f8a79

Subscribe to this mod's changes

instructionalist is an agent published in the GitHub repository anchildress1/awesome-github-copilot (65 stars, last pushed 25d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 55 tokens to every session and 1,650 once invoked, about $0.0003 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.