AKS-Lab-GitHubCopilot agent-framework.instructions.md

Repository instructions for building Microsoft Agent Framework agents with the GitHub Copilot SDK and connecting them through an orchestrator, which coordinates specialist agents.

In plain words
What is it for?
Implementing agent factories, local tools, FastMCP servers, and the orchestrator's request-handling structure.
Why use it?
They keep every agent on the repository's supported model, imports, factory shape, and service conventions.

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/microsoft/aks-lab-githubcopilot/agent-framework
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/microsoft/AKS-Lab-GitHubCopilot

Made for: GitHub Copilot.

Per session 1,227 This file is loaded in full into every session.
When invoked 1,227 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 $0.01227 $0.01227
Opus 5 $0.00613 $0.00613
Sonnet 5 $0.00245 $0.00245
Haiku 4.5 $0.00123 $0.00123

Measured yesterday against content hash 62a063b93c4f, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

AKS-Lab-GitHubCopilot agent-framework.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/agent-framework.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.

Microsoft Agent Framework + GitHub Copilot SDK conventions

Imports

from agent_framework import AgentResponse, FunctionTool, tool
from agent_framework.github import GitHubCopilotAgent, GitHubCopilotOptions
from copilot.generated.rpc import PermissionDecisionApproveOnce
from copilot.session import PermissionRequestResult

from src.shared.copilot import build_copilot_client

For MCP servers (FastMCP, not agents):

from mcp.server.fastmcp import FastMCP

Model

Every agent in this repo uses GitHubCopilotAgent with GitHubCopilotOptions(model="gpt-5.5"). Enforced — do not introduce AzureOpenAIChatClient, OpenAIChatClient, GitHubCopilotChatClient, or ChatAgent(client=...). If a future lab needs a different model, add it via config but keep gpt-5.5 as the default.

Building an agent

agent.py exposes exactly one factory returning a _RunnableAgent adapter (so make_app only needs .run(message)):

def _approve_all(_req: object, _ctx: dict[str, str]) -> PermissionRequestResult:
    return PermissionDecisionApproveOnce()


async def build_agent(settings: Settings) -> _RunnableAgent:
    agent = GitHubCopilotAgent(
        instructions=SYSTEM_PROMPT,
        client=build_copilot_client(),
        name="inventory",
        description="ZavaShop inventory specialist (...).",
        tools=list(TOOLS),               # usually [] — MCP is wired below
        default_options=GitHubCopilotOptions(
            model=settings.copilot_model,
            timeout=settings.copilot_timeout_seconds,
            on_permission_request=_approve_all,
            mcp_servers={
                "inventory": {
                    "type": "http",
                    "url": settings.inventory_mcp_url,
                    "tools": ["*"],
                    "timeout": int(settings.copilot_timeout_seconds * 1000),
                },
            },
        ),
    )
    return _RunnableAgent(agent=agent)

client=build_copilot_client() is mandatory so the lab GITHUB_TOKEN is passed explicitly to the Copilot SDK. on_permission_request=_approve_all is also mandatory. Without it the SDK denies every tool call and the LLM silently reports "all specialists rejected the request". mcp_servers[*].timeout is milliseconds, unlike GitHubCopilotOptions.timeout, which is seconds.

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. yesterday First seen · 128 lines · 1,227 tokens per session scan A 62a063b93c4f

Subscribe to this mod's changes

AKS-Lab-GitHubCopilot agent-framework.instructions.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository microsoft/AKS-Lab-GitHubCopilot (7 stars, last pushed 27d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 1,227 tokens to every session, about $0.0061 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 2026-08-31.

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