What is design-system copilot-instructions.md?

Repository instructions for using GitHub Copilot with the Iress Design System. They point to specialized guidance for bug fixes, component creation, file organization, linting, reviews, and other development tasks.

Use them to find the right instructions for a task and understand how the repository's specialized bug-fixing agent and other development guidance are organized.

They help an AI coding assistant follow the repository's local conventions instead of applying generic coding practices.

How iress/design-system configures GitHub Copilot

Reuse

Borrowing it

Nothing to install: this file belongs to iress/design-system. 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/iress/design-system/main/.github/copilot-instructions.md

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/iress/design-system

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/iress/design-system/copilot-instructions/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/instructions/iress/design-system/copilot-instructions)

Your own site

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

Per session 808 This file is loaded in full into every session.

When invoked 808 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	$0.00808	$0.00808
Opus 5.5	$0.00323	$0.00323
Sonnet 5.5	$0.00162	$0.00162
Haiku 4.5	$0.00081	$0.00081

Measured 2mo ago against content hash 1c6959badba7, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

design-system 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 · 87 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 87 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

GitHub Copilot Instructions for Iress Design System

This repository uses GitHub Copilot with specialized agents and instructions to maintain code quality and consistency.

Available Instructions

This repository contains domain-specific instructions located in .github/instructions/:

bugfixing.instructions.md - Comprehensive bug-fixing methodology and best practices
component-creation.instructions.md - Guidelines for creating new design system components
file-organization.instructions.md - File organization principles for implementation and test files
global.instructions.md - General workspace commands, test commands, and linting
pr-review.instructions.md - Code review standards and preferences
eslint.instructions.md - ESLint usage and file-specific linting patterns

Specialized Agents

Bug-Fixing Agent

A specialized agent for fixing bugs from the GitHub issue tracker. This agent:

Follows the comprehensive methodology in bugfixing.instructions.md
Handles bugs in both 5.x and main branches with cross-branch tracking
Creates Storybook bug reproduction stories
Provides multiple solution approaches with trade-offs
Generates PR-ready documentation
Integrates with GitHub Issues for automatic context retrieval
Ensures bugs fixed on one branch are addressed on the other when applicable

Invocation: Invoke the bug-fixing agent by mentioning it with an issue number or bug description. Always specify which branch(es) are affected.

Location: .github/agents/bugFixAgent.md

Prompts

Component Meta Agent

A specialized agent for generating component metadata and thumbnails.

Location: .github/prompts/createComponentMeta.md

General Copilot Behavior

When assisting with this repository, GitHub Copilot should:

Follow Existing Instructions: Always reference and follow the domain-specific instructions in .github/instructions/
Maintain Consistency: Follow established patterns and conventions in the codebase
Use Progressive Communication: Confirm understanding before implementing changes
Prefer Minimal Changes: Fix issues with targeted, minimal changes rather than over-engineering
Test-Driven: Run tests after changes and ensure no regressions
Document Changes: Provide clear explanations of what changed and why

Read the full file on GitHub · 87 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 · 87 lines · 808 tokens per session scan A 1c6959badba7

Subscribe to this mod's changes

design-system copilot-instructions.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository iress/design-system (1 stars, last pushed 2d ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 808 tokens to every session, about $0.0032 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.

design-system copilot-instructions.md next to 6 instructions from other repositories
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design-system copilot-instructions.mdiress/design-system	Instructions file	1	2d ago	Apache-2.0	A	808	GitHub Copilot
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vscode copilot-instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode	Instructions file	195k	yesterday	MIT	A	3,093	GitHub Copilot
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design-system: Instructions file for GitHub Copilot