vscode: Command for GitHub Copilot

.github/prompts/update-instructions.prompt.md

update-instructions is a command for GitHub Copilot from microsoft/vscode. It costs 0 tokens per session (204 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

Read the changes introduced on the current branch, including BOTH.

Command for GitHub Copilot

Written for GitHub Copilot: a Copilot chat mode or prompt. Also seen: agent in frontmatter.

This is microsoft/vscode's own configuration. It tells GitHub Copilot how to work on vscode itself, so it is not a mod to install elsewhere. Copy it as a starting point and replace the rules that are about this project. Everything vscode configures →

About the project

Visual Studio Code is a code editor that supports editing, navigating, understanding, debugging, and extending software projects. Developers use it for the edit-build-debug cycle, and the catalogue add-ons provide skills, instructions, and agents for working within the editor.

microsoft/vscode · 190,932 stars · on GitHub · code.visualstudio.com

Reuse

Borrowing it

Nothing to install: this file belongs to microsoft/vscode. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.

Copy the file
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/microsoft/vscode/main/.github/prompts/update-instructions.prompt.md
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/microsoft/vscode

Made for: GitHub Copilot.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for update-instructions

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/microsoft/vscode/update-instructions.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/commands/microsoft/vscode/update-instructions)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/commands/microsoft/vscode/update-instructions"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/microsoft/vscode/update-instructions.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 0 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 204 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin unknown 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 5.1 $0.00000 $0.00204
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00102
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00041
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00020

Measured today against content hash 3ef4805eea15, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-06, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

update-instructions 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 today.

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.

.github/prompts/update-instructions.prompt.md · 18 lines

What it actually says

Read the changes introduced on the current branch, including BOTH:

  1. Uncommitted workspace modifications (staged and unstaged)
  2. Committed changes that are on the current HEAD but not yet in the default upstream branch (e.g. origin/main)

Guidance:

  • First, capture uncommitted diffs (equivalent of git diff and git diff --cached).
  • Then, determine the merge base with the default branch (assume origin/main unless configured otherwise) using git merge-base HEAD origin/main and diff (git diff <merge-base>...HEAD) to include committed-but-unpushed work.

After understanding all of these changes, read every instruction file under .github/instructions and assess whether any instruction is invalidated. If so, propose minimal, necessary wording updates. If no updates are needed, respond exactly with: No updates needed.

Be concise and conservative: only suggest changes that are absolutely necessary.

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. today First seen · 18 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A 3ef4805eea15

Subscribe to this mod's changes

update-instructions is a command published in the GitHub repository microsoft/vscode (190,932 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 204 tokens. 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 2026-09-06.

Related

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