What is P.808 language.instructions.md?

A set of editing rules for improving grammar, spelling, punctuation, clarity, and consistency in repository text.

It applies minimal corrections to Markdown, documentation, comments, docstrings, HTML text, accessibility text, and clearly user-facing messages.

It fixes language problems while protecting code behavior, names, commands, URLs, identifiers, and other technical details.

P.808 language.instructions.md — Instructions file by microsoft

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/p.808/language

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/microsoft/P.808

Made for: GitHub Copilot.

Per session 480 This file is loaded in full into every session.

When invoked 480 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.

Model	Per session	Once invoked
Fable 5	$0.00480	$0.00480
Opus 5	$0.00240	$0.00240
Sonnet 5	$0.00096	$0.00096
Haiku 4.5	$0.00048	$0.00048

Measured yesterday against content hash 858fc8732229, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

P.808 language.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/language.instructions.md · 69 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 69 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Language and grammar correction rules

When editing this repository, improve language quality in a safe, minimal, and non-breaking way.

Goal

Correct grammar, spelling, punctuation, clarity, and consistency in:

Markdown documentation
README files
comments
docstrings
code examples written as prose
HTML visible text
HTML accessibility text such as alt, title, aria-label, and placeholder
user-facing messages in code, only when the meaning is clearly preserved

Do not change

Do not modify any of the following unless explicitly asked:

program logic or behavior
variable names
function names
class names
file names
import paths
URLs
API names
selectors
IDs
keys in JSON, YAML, or objects
database fields
CLI flags
commands
test expectations
code formatting unrelated to the language fix

Editing rules

Prefer the smallest safe diff.
Preserve the original meaning.
Preserve the existing tone unless it is clearly confusing or unprofessional.
Keep technical terminology unchanged.
Keep product names, library names, and framework names unchanged.
Do not rewrite text just for style preference.
Do not make speculative edits.
Do not “improve” wording inside code identifiers or structured data.
Do not touch generated files.

Code-specific rules

For Python and JavaScript:

Fix grammar in comments, docstrings, help text, and clearly user-facing strings.
Do not alter executable code unless required for a grammar fix in a user-facing string and the change is behavior-safe.
Do not rename symbols to improve wording.

For HTML:

Fix visible text and accessibility-related text.
Do not change class names, IDs, data attributes, script content, or linked resource paths.
Do not change markup structure unless needed to correct broken visible text.

Documentation rules

For Markdown and docs:

Correct grammar, spelling, punctuation, headings, and sentence clarity.
Keep meaning, structure, and technical accuracy intact.
Preserve code blocks exactly unless explicitly asked to edit them.

Read the full file on GitHub · 69 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.

yesterday First seen · 69 lines · 480 tokens per session scan A 858fc8732229

Subscribe to this mod's changes

P.808 language.instructions.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository microsoft/P.808 (230 stars, last pushed 14d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 480 tokens to every session, about $0.0024 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.

Writing and docs

codex AGENTS.md

AGENTS.md instructions for openai/codex, covering rust/codex-rs, the codex-core crate, code review rules, crate api surface and model visible context.

openai/codex · 5,182 tokens

buildNext

Working notes and architecture documentation for the new esbuild-based build system in build/next. Use when making changes to the new build pipeline (transpile/bundle commands, NLS plugin, source-map handling, resource copying, or self-hosting watch tasks).

microsoft/vscode · 6,785 tokens

P.808 language.instructions.md