copilot-sdk docs-style.instructions.md

Documentation writing rules for the GitHub Copilot SDK, a software library for adding Copilot features to applications.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use them when editing SDK documentation, especially headings, proper names, callouts, lists, and capitalization.
Why use it?
They keep documentation headings, product names, technical terms, and formatting consistent with GitHub’s documentation standards.

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/github/copilot-sdk/docs-style
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/github/copilot-sdk

Made for: GitHub Copilot.

Per session 1,664 This file is loaded in full into every session.
When invoked 1,664 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 $0.01664 $0.01664
Opus 5 $0.00832 $0.00832
Sonnet 5 $0.00333 $0.00333
Haiku 4.5 $0.00166 $0.00166

Measured yesterday against content hash d03530b19960, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

copilot-sdk docs-style.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/instructions/docs-style.instructions.md · 227 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 227 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Copilot SDK docs style guide

This style guide applies to all documentation in the docs/ directory. These docs are synced to github/docs-internal via a normalization pipeline, so they must follow the conventions below to be compatible with docs.github.com.

Headings

Use sentence case for all headings. Capitalize only the first word and proper nouns.

  • ## Quick start: Microsoft Foundry — not ## Quick Start: Microsoft Foundry
  • # Custom agents and sub-agent orchestration — not # Custom Agents & Sub-Agent Orchestration

Use and instead of & in headings.

Do not use **bold** or *italic* markers inside headings. The heading level provides emphasis.

Proper nouns to always capitalize

  • Products/companies: GitHub, Copilot, Azure, OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, Ollama, Slack, Foundry, Kubernetes, Docker
  • Languages/frameworks: TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, Java, Node.js, OpenTelemetry, Express
  • Platforms: macOS, Linux, Windows
  • Protocols/formats: OAuth, JSON-RPC, JSON, YAML, HTTP, TCP, SSE, REST
  • Acronyms: MCP, BYOK, MAF, SDK, CLI, API, HMAC, CI/CD, SaaS, ISV, FAQ, LLM, AI, EMU, ID, UI, PNG
  • Tools (keep canonical casing): npm, npx, stdio
  • Code identifiers in headings: SessionConfig, MessageOptions, TelemetryConfig, ProviderConfig, CopilotClient
  • Multi-word proper names: GitHub App, GitHub Actions, GitHub OAuth, Foundry Local, Managed Identity, Container Instances

Callouts

Use GitHub-flavored alert syntax:

> [!NOTE]
> This is a note.

> [!TIP]
> This is a tip.

> [!WARNING]
> This is a warning.

Never use > **Note:** or > **Tip:** style callouts.

When a callout applies to a specific language, put the qualifier as bold text in the body:

> [!TIP]
> **(Python / Go)** These SDKs use separate, per-event data types.

Lists

Unordered lists

Use * (asterisks) for unordered list markers, not - (hyphens).

Ordered lists

Use 1. for every item in ordered lists, not sequential numbering. This makes reordering easier.

Read the full file on GitHub · 227 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 · 227 lines · 1,664 tokens per session scan A d03530b19960

Subscribe to this mod's changes

copilot-sdk docs-style.instructions.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository github/copilot-sdk (10,441 stars, last pushed 2d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 1,664 tokens to every session, about $0.0083 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.

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