mcp-ai-agent-guidelines: Instructions file for GitHub Copilot

.github/instructions/local-tool-safety.instructions.md

mcp-ai-agent-guidelines local-tool-safety.instructions.md is an instructions file for GitHub Copilot from Anselmoo/mcp-ai-agent-guidelines. It costs 398 tokens per session, scanned A, original, MIT.

A set of instructions for safe local development and repository maintenance. It covers how to build and restart the local service, avoid unsafe deletion, and make changes with test coverage in mind.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when building, restarting, troubleshooting, editing, or testing this repository.
Why use it?
It reduces the risk of debugging with stale code, deleting local state incorrectly, or making changes without checking that they work.

Instructions file for GitHub Copilot

Written for GitHub Copilot: a Copilot instructions file.

This is Anselmoo/mcp-ai-agent-guidelines's own configuration. It tells GitHub Copilot how to work on mcp-ai-agent-guidelines 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 mcp-ai-agent-guidelines configures →

Reuse

Borrowing it

Nothing to install: this file belongs to Anselmoo/mcp-ai-agent-guidelines. 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/Anselmoo/mcp-ai-agent-guidelines/main/.github/instructions/local-tool-safety.instructions.md
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Anselmoo/mcp-ai-agent-guidelines

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.

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README.md
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Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/anselmoo/mcp-ai-agent-guidelines/local-tool-safety"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/anselmoo/mcp-ai-agent-guidelines/local-tool-safety/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

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Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/anselmoo/mcp-ai-agent-guidelines/local-tool-safety"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/anselmoo/mcp-ai-agent-guidelines/local-tool-safety.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 398 This file is loaded in full into every session.
When invoked 398 The same file — it is already loaded in full.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
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 5.1 $0.00398 $0.00398
Opus 5 $0.00199 $0.00199
Sonnet 5 $0.00080 $0.00080
Haiku 4.5 $0.00040 $0.00040

Measured 10d ago against content hash 18ff44c43b6d, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-10, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

mcp-ai-agent-guidelines local-tool-safety.instructions.md 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 10d 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.

.github/instructions/local-tool-safety.instructions.md · 31 lines

What it actually says

Local tool safety and workspace hygiene

This repository currently has unreliable local file creation and direct state deletion behavior. When working here, prefer safer project workflows and keep the local MCP server aligned with the latest build.

  1. Avoid unsafe direct tool usage

    • Do not use fetch_webpage in this workspace unless there is no other way to get the data.
    • Do not call direct delete variants such as agent-memory-delete or mcp_ai-agent-guid_agent-memory-delete.
    • Prefer explicit workspace edits, agent-memory-read|write|fetch, and agent-session/read|write flows instead.
  2. Keep the local build current

    • Before running or debugging anything in this repo, run npm run build.
    • Restart the local MCP server after rebuilding so the agent uses the newest dist/ artifacts.
    • If local tools fail unexpectedly, rebuild and restart before changing the tool logic.
  3. Do not delete .mcp-ai-agent-guidelines/ manually

    • Avoid hard deleting the local state directory for troubleshooting.
    • If the state directory needs to be reset, use the repository’s supported reset or onboarding workflows instead.
  4. Coverage-first development

    • New source files in src/ must ship tests and must not lower the project coverage rate.
    • Mirror new code under src/tests/... and verify with npm run test:coverage.
    • Add cases for both positive and negative branches in new logic.
  5. Make diagnostics actionable

    • When writing warnings or failure messages, call out the required recovery steps explicitly: npm run build, restart the MCP server, and avoid unsafe direct delete tools.
    • Explain why the tool path is blocked, not just that it failed.
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. 10d ago First seen · 31 lines · 398 tokens per session scan A 18ff44c43b6d

Subscribe to this mod's changes

mcp-ai-agent-guidelines local-tool-safety.instructions.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository Anselmoo/mcp-ai-agent-guidelines (6 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed MIT. It adds 398 tokens to every session, about $0.0020 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.

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