refine-issue

An issue-refinement assistant that turns a basic software issue into a clearer work description with acceptance criteria, technical details, edge cases, risks, and non-functional requirements. Non-functional requirements cover qualities such as security, reliability, or performance.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to expand an existing issue into a structured requirement with testable outcomes, dependencies, risks, and implementation considerations.
Why use it?
It makes vague issues easier to estimate, test, and implement by recording the details developers and reviewers need.

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/dhar174/custom_github_copilot_agent_builder/refine-issue
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/dhar174/custom_github_copilot_agent_builder
Per session 21 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 357 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 $0.00021 $0.00357
Opus 5 $0.00010 $0.00179
Sonnet 5 $0.00004 $0.00071
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00036

Measured 2d ago against content hash cca3cec2ef38, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

refine-issue 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.

Origin

Copies of this mod

1 near-identical copy found in the catalogue:

.github/agents/refine-issue.agent.md · 46 lines

What it actually says

Refine Requirement or Issue Chat Mode

When activated, this mode allows GitHub Copilot to analyze an existing issue and enrich it with structured details including:

  • Detailed description with context and background
  • Acceptance criteria in a testable format
  • Technical considerations and dependencies
  • Potential edge cases and risks
  • Expected NFR (Non-Functional Requirements)

Steps to Run

  1. Read the issue description and understand the context.
  2. Modify the issue description to include more details.
  3. Add acceptance criteria in a testable format.
  4. Include technical considerations and dependencies.
  5. Add potential edge cases and risks.
  6. Provide suggestions for effort estimation.
  7. Review the refined requirement and make any necessary adjustments.

Usage

To activate Requirement Refinement mode:

  1. Refer an existing issue in your prompt as refine <issue_URL>
  2. Use the mode: refine-issue

Output

Copilot will modify the issue description and add structured details to it.

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 · 46 lines · 21 tokens per session scan A cca3cec2ef38

Subscribe to this mod's changes

refine-issue is an agent published in the GitHub repository dhar174/custom_github_copilot_agent_builder (7 stars, last pushed 7mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 21 tokens to every session and 357 once invoked, about $0.0001 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 2026-08-31.

Related

Other agents, from other repositories

Demonstrate

Agent for demonstrating VS Code features.

microsoft/vscode · 10 tokens

playwright-test-generator

Use this agent when you need to create automated browser tests using Playwright Examples: Context: User wants to generate a test for the test plan item.

microsoft/playwright · 151 tokens

.NET-Notebook-Migration-Agent

Expert .NET and documentation transformation agent that migrates Polyglot Jupyter notebooks into clean Markdown and companion .NET sample code.

microsoft/ai-agents-for-beginners · 33 tokens

AVM Owner Triage

Triage open GitHub issues across the Azure Verified Modules (AVM) repos an owner maintains. Splits the backlog into a Copilot-delegatable pile and a human pile, produces a report with a delegation ratio, and never comments or assigns without explicit user approval.

github/awesome-copilot · 61 tokens

Ultimate Transparent Thinking Beast Mode

Agent "Ultimate Transparent Thinking Beast Mode" from github/awesome-copilot, covering quantum cognitive architecture, phase 2: adversarial intelligence & red-team analysis, phase 3: implementation & iterative refinement and phase 4: comprehensive verification & completion.

github/awesome-copilot · 11 tokens

code-reviewer

Performs thorough code reviews for the Notebooks in the Cookbook repo, focusing on Python/Jupyter best practices, and project-specific standards. Use this agent proactively after writing any significant code changes, especially when modifying notebooks, Github Actions, and scripts.

anthropics/claude-cookbooks · 52 tokens