apex-accelerator agent-authoring.instructions.md

apex-accelerator agent-authoring.instructions.md is an instructions file for GitHub Copilot from jonathan-vella/apex-accelerator. It costs 1,235 tokens per session, scanned A, original, MIT.

A set of rules for the structure and behavior of GitHub Copilot agent and prompt files. These files define how Copilot agents are discovered, invoked, given tools, and assigned models.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when creating, editing, or auditing Copilot agents and prompts, especially their metadata, available tools, delegation settings, and model assignments.
Why use it?
It prevents invalid definitions that cannot be discovered, validated, or run correctly, such as malformed metadata or unsupported tool settings.

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/jonathan-vella/apex-accelerator/agent-authoring
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/jonathan-vella/apex-accelerator

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.

agentmods badge for apex-accelerator agent-authoring.instructions.md

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/jonathan-vella/apex-accelerator/agent-authoring.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/instructions/jonathan-vella/apex-accelerator/agent-authoring)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/jonathan-vella/apex-accelerator/agent-authoring"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/jonathan-vella/apex-accelerator/agent-authoring.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 1,235 This file is loaded in full into every session.
When invoked 1,235 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 5.1 $0.01235 $0.01235
Opus 5 $0.00617 $0.00617
Sonnet 5 $0.00247 $0.00247
Haiku 4.5 $0.00123 $0.00123

Measured 5d ago against content hash b88deaa879bf, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-05, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

apex-accelerator agent-authoring.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 5d 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/instructions/agent-authoring.instructions.md · 128 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 128 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Agent Authoring Standards

Keep this auto-loaded file limited to rules that affect runtime correctness or repository validation. For agent creation, structural rewrites, model selection, or deep audits, load .github/skills/agent-authoring/SKILL.md.

Frontmatter Rules

  • Use valid YAML between --- delimiters with spaces, not tabs.
  • Keep description on one line; block scalars break agent discovery.
  • Keep description at or below 350 characters; aim for 300 or fewer.
  • Agent models use array form; prompt models use quoted string form.
  • Agent frontmatter is the canonical model assignment. Mirror it in tools/registry/agent-registry.json; catalog assignments are generated.
  • Use only available tool IDs. Delegation uses agent, not agent/runSubagent.
  • If agents is present, include agent in tools. Leaf subagents set user-invocable: false and agents: [].
  • Replace deprecated infer with user-invocable and disable-model-invocation.

Complete field reference: agent-authoring/references/agent-file-structure.md.

Frontmatter Description Length

Router descriptions need trigger keywords, not full scope documentation. Move extended scope tables into the body or an on-demand reference.

Handoff Rules

  • Target an existing agent using its exact frontmatter name.
  • Use only label, agent, prompt, send, showContinueOn, and model.
  • Omit handoffs[].model when it matches the target agent's own model.
  • Every handoff prompt names its input and expected output.
  • Use the workflow DAG rather than adding an inline handoff taxonomy.

Validation details: workflow-engine/references/handoff-validation-rules.md.

Model Policy

Model selection is intentional. Do not change model order or assignments without explicit approval. Reasoning effort is a per-agent or per-call policy, never a model-label suffix.

Read the full file on GitHub · 128 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. 5d ago First seen · 128 lines · 1,235 tokens per session scan A b88deaa879bf

Subscribe to this mod's changes

apex-accelerator agent-authoring.instructions.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository jonathan-vella/apex-accelerator (50 stars, last pushed 4d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 1,235 tokens to every session, about $0.0062 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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