intelligent-terminal hooks.instructions.md

Guidance for creating hooks: small commands or scripts that run at defined points in an agent session. It covers their configuration, event matching, input, output, and exit codes.

In plain words
What is it for?
Authoring hooks that inspect or control tool use, registering them for lifecycle events, and providing shell or PowerShell implementations.
Why use it?
It helps hooks stay predictable, quick, and clear about their side effects. It also shows how to organize hook configuration and scripts in a repository.

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/intelligent-terminal/hooks
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/microsoft/intelligent-terminal

Made for: GitHub Copilot.

Per session 5,380 This file is loaded in full into every session.
When invoked 5,380 The same file — it is already loaded in full.
Security scan D 2 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 $0.05380 $0.05380
Opus 5 $0.02690 $0.02690
Sonnet 5 $0.01076 $0.01076
Haiku 4.5 $0.00538 $0.00538

Measured 2d ago against content hash d01563985d7a, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade D, and why

intelligent-terminal hooks.instructions.md scanned grade D with 2 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 2d 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.

Reads agent configuration directoriesmediumAgent snooping

.claude/, .codex/, .gemini/ hold keys, settings and other credentials a mod has no legitimate need for.

- Settings in `~/.claude/settings.json` and `.claude/settings.json`

Recursive force deletehighDestructive command

rm -rf with a variable or a broad path is one typo away from removing the wrong tree.

if printf '%s' "$command" | grep -qE 'rm -rf /|git reset --hard|git clean -fd|git push.*--force'; then
.github/instructions/hooks.instructions.md · 598 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 598 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Hook Authoring Guidelines

Hooks are small, deterministic commands or scripts that run at specific lifecycle events. An awesome hook does one clear job, runs quickly, and makes its side effects explicit.

Folder Structure

A GitHub Copilot hook lives in .github/hooks/ inside your repository:

.github/
└── hooks/
    ├── block-dangerous-commands.json   ← hook config (which event, which script, options)
    └── scripts/
        ├── block-dangerous-commands.sh  ← Bash implementation
        └── block-dangerous-commands.ps1 ← PowerShell implementation (optional if Bash-only)

You can have multiple .json files — each one registers hooks for one or more events. The host loads all of them.

The Config File

Each .json file maps events to an array of hook entries.

  • Command hooks (type: "command"): run a local script. The host passes event JSON on stdin, your script responds through exit code and stdout.

Config example

{
  "version": 1,
  "hooks": {
    "preToolUse": [
      {
        "matcher": "bash",
        "type": "command",
        "bash": "./.github/hooks/scripts/block-dangerous-commands.sh",
        "powershell": "./.github/hooks/scripts/block-dangerous-commands.ps1",
        "cwd": ".",
        "timeoutSec": 5,
        "env": {
          "BLOCK_MODE": "deny"
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

Config fields

Field Required What it does
type yes "command" for scripts
matcher no Host-level filter — hook only fires when the tool name matches this value (e.g. "bash", "powershell", "edit", "create"). Locally verified working in Copilot CLI v1.0.36; not yet used in repo hook samples.
bash one or both Command line invoked on Unix / Bash-capable hosts
powershell one or both Command line invoked on Windows / PowerShell-capable hosts
cwd no Working directory, relative to repo root
timeoutSec no Max seconds before the host kills the process (default 30)
env no Extra process environment variables passed to the script

Read the full file on GitHub · 598 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. 2d ago First seen · 598 lines · 5,380 tokens per session scan D d01563985d7a

Subscribe to this mod's changes

intelligent-terminal hooks.instructions.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository microsoft/intelligent-terminal (1,908 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 5,380 tokens to every session, about $0.0269 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it D with 2 findings (reads agent configuration directories, recursive force delete). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

Related

Other instructions, from other repositories

coddy-agent AGENTS.md

Instructions for coddy-project/coddy-agent, covering agent notes for coddy, repository navigation, builds, pre-commit gate and documentation contract.

coddy-project/coddy-agent · 3,647 tokens

coddy-agent CLAUDE.md

Instructions for coddy-project/coddy-agent, a project described as: General-purpose agent in one static Go binary. ReAct loop, ACP server for IDEs, OpenAI-compatible REST API with embedded web UI, Telegram gateway, cron scheduler, long-term memory, context compaction, rules, skills, MCP. Distroless-ready, works with…

coddy-project/coddy-agent · 3 tokens

mini-swe-agent copilot-instructions.md

Copilot instructions for SWE-agent/mini-swe-agent, covering style guide, test style, bad and good.

SWE-agent/mini-swe-agent · 378 tokens

ii-agent AGENTS.md

Instructions for Intelligent-Internet/ii-agent, covering ii-agent contributor guide, quick start, repository map, mandatory rules and architecture.

Intelligent-Internet/ii-agent · 3,294 tokens

thinkrail AGENTS.md

Instructions for JetBrains/thinkrail, covering thinkrail, module structure & boundaries (top-priority requirement), engine: pi only, in-process, architecture (three rings) and repo layout.

JetBrains/thinkrail · 4,503 tokens

sortie copilot-instructions.md

Instructions for sortie-ai/sortie, covering sortie coding & review standards, 1. layered imports (downward only; violation is critical), 2. concurrency safety, 3. workspace path safety (critical: security boundary) and 4. persistence (sqlite).

sortie-ai/sortie · 1,030 tokens