ApplicationInsights-dotnet is the .NET SDK for collecting application telemetry and sending it to Azure Monitor and Application Insights through OpenTelemetry. It is for ASP.NET Core applications, worker services, console programs, background services, and custom .NET integrations that need monitoring data. The catalogue includes an AI skill that guides coding agents through setting up, migrating, or improving Application Insights.
Borrowing it
Nothing to install: this file belongs to microsoft/ApplicationInsights-dotnet. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/microsoft/ApplicationInsights-dotnet/main/AGENTS.mdgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/microsoft/ApplicationInsights-dotnetWrote 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.
[](https://agentmods.dev/instructions/microsoft/applicationinsights-dotnet/agents-md)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/microsoft/applicationinsights-dotnet/agents-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/microsoft/applicationinsights-dotnet/agents-md/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.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/microsoft/applicationinsights-dotnet/agents-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/microsoft/applicationinsights-dotnet/agents-md.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>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 | $0.00811 | $0.00811 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00324 | $0.00324 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00162 | $0.00162 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00081 | $0.00081 |
Grade A, and why
ApplicationInsights-dotnet AGENTS.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.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 86 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
AGENTS.md
Overview
This is the .NET SDK for Azure Monitor / Application Insights, built on OpenTelemetry. It provides the Microsoft.ApplicationInsights family of NuGet packages for instrumenting .NET applications with distributed tracing, metrics, and logging.
Repository Structure
| Directory | Contents |
|---|---|
BASE/ |
Core SDK (Microsoft.ApplicationInsights) |
NETCORE/ |
ASP.NET Core + Worker Service SDKs |
WEB/ |
Classic ASP.NET Web SDK |
LOGGING/ |
NLog logging adapter |
examples/ |
7 runnable example apps |
docs/ |
Conceptual documentation |
skills/ |
AI-assisted instrumentation skills (see below) |
Build & Test
dotnet build Everything.sln
dotnet test Everything.sln
Platform-specific filters: Everything.Windows.slnf, Everything.Linux.slnf.
Key conventions:
- Central package management via
Directory.Packages.props - Public API tracking in
.publicApi/(updatePublicAPI.Unshipped.txtwhen adding public APIs) - Strong-name signing required
AI-Assisted Instrumentation Skills
The skills/applicationinsights-setup/ folder contains a portable skill that helps developers set up, migrate, or enhance Application Insights 3.x SDK in their .NET applications.
What It Does
- Greenfield: Guides new setup for ASP.NET Core, Worker Service, ASP.NET Classic, and Console apps using Application Insights 3.x SDK
- Migration: Walks through 2.x → 3.x upgrade with code change detection and step-by-step fixes
- Enhancement: Adds Entity Framework, Redis, SQL, HTTP, OTLP, custom processors, activities, logging, and custom metrics to apps already on 3.x
Installation by Agent
GitHub Copilot: Copilot natively supports Agent Skills. Copy the skill folder to your project:
cp -r skills/applicationinsights-setup .github/skills/applicationinsights-setup
Copilot discovers skills in .github/skills/ (and .claude/skills/) automatically. Works with Copilot coding agent, GitHub Copilot CLI, and agent mode in VS Code.
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 · 86 lines · 811 tokens per session scan A 2ce770fed0ff
ApplicationInsights-dotnet AGENTS.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository microsoft/ApplicationInsights-dotnet (616 stars, last pushed 3d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 811 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 2026-08-30.
ApplicationInsights-dotnet AGENTS.md compared with instructions from other repositories
| Mod | Type | Stars | Last push | Licence | Scan | Tokens | Works with |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ApplicationInsights-dotnet AGENTS.mdmicrosoft/ApplicationInsights-dotnet | Instructions file | 616 | 3d ago | MIT | A | 811 | Codex, OpenCode |
| vscode buildNext.instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode | Instructions file | 195k | yesterday | MIT | A | 9,719 | GitHub Copilot |
| next.js AGENTS.mdvercel/next.js | Instructions file | 143k | today | MIT | A | 7,461 | Codex, OpenCode |
| langchain AGENTS.mdlangchain-ai/langchain | Instructions file | 149k | today | MIT | A | 4,680 | Codex, OpenCode |
| vscode oss-third-party-notices.instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode | Instructions file | 195k | yesterday | MIT | A | 5,516 | GitHub Copilot |
| vscode copilot-instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode | Instructions file | 195k | yesterday | MIT | A | 3,093 | GitHub Copilot |
| deepseek-harness AGENTS.mddeepseek-ai/deepseek-harness | Instructions file | 274k | 2d ago | MIT | A | 4,313 | Codex, OpenCode |