deno copilot-instructions.md

Development instructions for Deno, a JavaScript and TypeScript runtime, used with GitHub Copilot. They describe the project structure, important files, and network access needed by some tools.

In plain words
What is it for?
They are for guiding Copilot through Deno development, locating runtime and command-line code, and running formatting and linting tools with the required access.
Why use it?
They help an agent understand where code lives and prevent formatter or linter failures caused by unavailable package or plugin sites.

Instructions file for GitHub Copilot

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 instructions/denoland/deno/copilot-instructions
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/denoland/deno

Made for: GitHub Copilot.

Per session 3,077 This file is loaded in full into every session.
When invoked 3,077 The same file — it is already loaded in full.
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 $0.03077 $0.03077
Opus 5 $0.01538 $0.01538
Sonnet 5 $0.00615 $0.00615
Haiku 4.5 $0.00308 $0.00308

Measured yesterday against content hash 3ecf3a02d8dc, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

deno 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 yesterday.

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 · 353 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 353 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Deno Development Guide for GitHub Copilot

Network Access

The development tools in this repository need network access to function. When running tools/format.js or tools/lint.js, ensure the following domains are reachable:

  • https://jsr.io — Deno's package registry, used for @std/* imports
  • https://dprint.dev and https://plugins.dprint.dev — the formatter (tools/format.js) runs npm:dprint which downloads WASM plugins from plugins.dprint.dev

If you are running in a sandboxed environment, you must allowlist these domains or the tools will fail with network errors.

High Level Overview

The user-visible interface and high-level integration is in the deno crate (located in ./cli).

This includes flag parsing, subcommands, package management tooling, etc. Flag parsing is in cli/args/flags.rs. Tools are in cli/tools/<tool>.

The deno_runtime crate (./runtime) assembles the JavaScript runtime, including all of the "extensions" (native functionality exposed to JavaScript). The extensions themselves are in the ext/ directory, and provide system access to JavaScript — for instance filesystem operations and networking.

Key Directories

  • cli/ — User-facing CLI implementation, subcommands, and tools
  • runtime/ — JavaScript runtime assembly and integration
  • ext/ — Extensions providing native functionality to JS (fs, net, etc.)
  • libs/ — Shared Rust crates (core, resolver, npm, node_resolver, serde_v8, etc.)
  • tests/specs/ — Integration tests (spec tests)
  • tests/unit/ — Unit tests
  • tests/testdata/ — Test fixtures and data files

Key Files to Understand First

  1. cli/main.rs — Entry point, command routing
  2. cli/args/flags.rs — CLI flag parsing and structure
  3. runtime/worker.rs — Worker/runtime initialization
  4. runtime/permissions.rs — Permission system
  5. cli/module_loader.rs — Module loading and resolution

Common Patterns

  • Ops — Rust functions exposed to JavaScript (in ext/ directories)
  • Extensions — Collections of ops and JS code providing functionality
  • Workers — JavaScript execution contexts (main worker, web workers)
  • Resources — Managed objects passed between Rust and JS (files, sockets, etc.)

Read the full file on GitHub · 353 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.

  1. yesterday First seen · 353 lines · 3,077 tokens per session scan A 3ecf3a02d8dc

Subscribe to this mod's changes

deno copilot-instructions.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository denoland/deno (108,342 stars, last pushed 2d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 3,077 tokens to every session, about $0.0154 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.