What is calva-backseat-driver copilot-instructions.md?

Developer instructions for Backseat Driver, a ClojureScript VS Code extension that lets AI agents evaluate code in a running ClojureScript environment. They explain its REPL, or interactive code prompt, and how to inspect its state safely.

Use them while developing or debugging the extension, evaluating ClojureScript, inspecting application state, and working with its AI context and VS Code integration.

They help an agent use the correct interactive session and avoid unsafe or unreadable state inspection. This reduces mistakes caused by using the build environment instead of the extension’s live environment.

How BetterThanTomorrow/calva-backseat-driver configures GitHub Copilot

Reuse

Borrowing it

Nothing to install: this file belongs to BetterThanTomorrow/calva-backseat-driver. 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/BetterThanTomorrow/calva-backseat-driver/master/.github/copilot-instructions.md

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/BetterThanTomorrow/calva-backseat-driver

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.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/betterthantomorrow/calva-backseat-driver/copilot-instructions.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/instructions/betterthantomorrow/calva-backseat-driver/copilot-instructions)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/betterthantomorrow/calva-backseat-driver/copilot-instructions"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/betterthantomorrow/calva-backseat-driver/copilot-instructions.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Per session 492 This file is loaded in full into every session.

When invoked 492 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.

Model	Per session	Once invoked
Fable 5.1	$0.00492	$0.00492
Opus 5	$0.00246	$0.00246
Sonnet 5	$0.00098	$0.00098
Haiku 4.5	$0.00049	$0.00049

Measured 7d ago against content hash ef928b19f9b5, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

calva-backseat-driver copilot-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 7d 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/copilot-instructions.md · 39 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 39 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

For comprehensive development guidance, invoke the @backseat-dev agent.

What Backseat Driver Is

Backseat Driver bridges AI coding assistants into Interactive Programming — the REPL-driven development practice central to Clojure culture. A ClojureScript VS Code extension running in the Extension Host (Node.js), built from scratch with zero npm dependencies for the protocol layer. Provides MCP server and VS Code Language Model tools for REPL evaluation, structural editing, and output inspection.

REPL Environment

Primary REPL: Backseat Driver CLJS (clojure_evaluate_code, replSessionKey: "cljs") — for developing the extension itself
Shadow-cljs build tooling: CLJ session (replSessionKey: "clj") — build system only

This is ClojureScript on Node.js. Use the cljs session, not clj.

State Inspection Safety

@db/!app-db — always dissoc :vscode/extension-context before inspecting (circular references)
VS Code API objects — use select-keys or dissoc, never print raw
Datascript connections — @db/!output-conn (session output), @db/!history-conn (persistent history)

Bundled AI Context (chatSkills / chatInstructions)

Skills are registered in package.json as chatSkills (Copilot skill loader + MCP resources). Short pointer instructions in chatInstructions are always injected. Skills are conditional on user settings (provideBdSkill, provideEditSkill).

Key Development Commands

npm run watch           # shadow-cljs + nREPL, auto-runs tests
bb run-e2e-tests-ws     # Full E2E (output → .tmp/e2e-output.log)
bb run-mcp-inspector    # Test MCP tools interactively
bb package-pre-release  # Package pre-release VSIX

Reference Documents

AGENTS.md — comprehensive agent onboarding (architecture, patterns, adding features)
dev/EX_ARCHITECTURE.md — action/effect system details
dev/MCP_OVERVIEW.md — MCP protocol specifics
dev/agent-docs/soul-of-backseat-driver.md — guiding philosophy and invariants

Read the full file on GitHub · 39 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.

7d ago First seen · 39 lines · 492 tokens per session scan A ef928b19f9b5

Subscribe to this mod's changes

calva-backseat-driver copilot-instructions.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository BetterThanTomorrow/calva-backseat-driver (64 stars, last pushed 9d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 492 tokens to every session, about $0.0025 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.

Debugging Languages ai ai-tools clojure copilot vscode vscode-extension

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calva-backseat-driver: Instructions file for GitHub Copilot