What is pyball copilot-instructions.md?

Project instructions for pyball, covering Beads, a Git-backed issue tracker for managing development tasks, plus its Go, SQLite, testing, and workflow rules.

Use them when changing Beads commands, storage, tests, documentation, JSON output, linting, or the Python MCP server integration.

They tell the coding agent how this repository tracks work and how to avoid mixing test data with the real issue database.

How boscoh/pyball configures GitHub Copilot

Reuse

Borrowing it

Nothing to install: this file belongs to boscoh/pyball. 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/boscoh/pyball/master/.github/copilot-instructions.md

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/boscoh/pyball

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/boscoh/pyball/copilot-instructions/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/instructions/boscoh/pyball/copilot-instructions)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/boscoh/pyball/copilot-instructions"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/boscoh/pyball/copilot-instructions/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.

Your own site · 80×15

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/boscoh/pyball/copilot-instructions"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/boscoh/pyball/copilot-instructions.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session 1,131 This file is loaded in full into every session.

When invoked 1,131 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	$0.01131	$0.01131
Opus 5.5	$0.00452	$0.00452
Sonnet 5.5	$0.00226	$0.00226
Haiku 4.5	$0.00113	$0.00113

Measured 2mo ago against content hash cd36387d2082, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

pyball 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 2mo 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 · 134 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 134 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

GitHub Copilot Instructions for Beads

Project Overview

beads (command: bd) is a Git-backed issue tracker designed for AI-supervised coding workflows. We dogfood our own tool for all task tracking.

Key Features:

Dependency-aware issue tracking
Auto-sync with Git via JSONL
AI-optimized CLI with JSON output
Built-in daemon for background operations
MCP server integration for Claude and other AI assistants

Tech Stack

Language: Go 1.21+
Storage: SQLite (internal/storage/sqlite/)
CLI Framework: Cobra
Testing: Go standard testing + table-driven tests
CI/CD: GitHub Actions
MCP Server: Python (integrations/beads-mcp/)

Coding Guidelines

Testing

Always write tests for new features
Use BEADS_DB=/tmp/test.db to avoid polluting production database
Run go test -short ./... before committing
Never create test issues in production DB (use temporary DB)

Code Style

Run golangci-lint run ./... before committing
Follow existing patterns in cmd/bd/ for new commands
Add --json flag to all commands for programmatic use
Update docs when changing behavior

Git Workflow

Always commit .beads/issues.jsonl with code changes
Run bd sync at end of work sessions
Install git hooks: bd hooks install (ensures DB ↔ JSONL consistency)

Issue Tracking with bd

CRITICAL: This project uses bd for ALL task tracking. Do NOT create markdown TODO lists.

Essential Commands

# Find work
bd ready --json                    # Unblocked issues
bd stale --days 30 --json          # Forgotten issues

# Create and manage
bd create "Title" -t bug|feature|task -p 0-4 --json
bd update <id> --status in_progress --json
bd close <id> --reason "Done" --json

# Search
bd list --status open --priority 1 --json
bd show <id> --json

# Sync (CRITICAL at end of session!)
bd sync  # Force immediate export/commit/push

Workflow

Check ready work: bd ready --json
Claim task: bd update <id> --status in_progress
Work on it: Implement, test, document
Discover new work? bd create "Found bug" -p 1 --deps discovered-from:<parent-id> --json
Complete: bd close <id> --reason "Done" --json
Sync: bd sync (flushes changes to git immediately)

Read the full file on GitHub · 134 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.

2mo ago First seen · 134 lines · 1,131 tokens per session scan A cd36387d2082

Subscribe to this mod's changes

pyball copilot-instructions.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository boscoh/pyball (10 stars, last pushed 11mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 1,131 tokens to every session, about $0.0045 per session on Opus 5.5. 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.

pyball copilot-instructions.md next to 6 instructions from other repositories
Mod	Type	Stars	Last push	Licence	Scan	Tokens	Works with
pyball copilot-instructions.mdboscoh/pyball	Instructions file	10	11mo ago	MIT	A	1,131	GitHub Copilot
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vscode oss-third-party-notices.instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode	Instructions file	195k	yesterday	MIT	A	5,516	GitHub Copilot
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pyball: Instructions file for GitHub Copilot