PromptKit is a version-controlled library of reusable prompt components for engineering work, including personas, reasoning protocols, output formats, and task templates. Engineers use it to create repeatable prompts for activities such as specification work, debugging, code review, security audits, and change management across multiple engineering fields. The catalogue add-ons provide agent workflows for using this prompt-engineering system.
Borrowing it
Nothing to install: this file belongs to microsoft/PromptKit. 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/PromptKit/main/.github/copilot-instructions.mdgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/microsoft/PromptKitWrote 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/promptkit/copilot-instructions)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/microsoft/promptkit/copilot-instructions"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/microsoft/promptkit/copilot-instructions/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/promptkit/copilot-instructions"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/microsoft/promptkit/copilot-instructions.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 | $0.01144 | $0.01144 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00458 | $0.00458 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00229 | $0.00229 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00114 | $0.00114 |
Grade A, and why
PromptKit copilot-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 1mo 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 — 139 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
PromptKit — Copilot Instructions
How to Use This Repository
When a user asks you to perform a task that this library supports (writing
requirements, investigating bugs, reviewing code, etc.), use the
/promptkit skill (or read and execute bootstrap.md). It is the entry
point that guides component selection, parameter gathering, and prompt
assembly. Do not try to answer the task directly — assemble the right
prompt first.
What This Repository Is
PromptKit is a composable prompt library, not a software application. There is no build system, no runtime, and no application code. Every file is Markdown or YAML — the "code" is prose that LLMs consume.
The core loop: bootstrap.md reads manifest.yaml to discover components,
then assembles them into task-specific prompts from five composable layers:
personas → protocols → formats → taxonomies → templates.
Architecture
Templates are the orchestration layer. Each template declares which persona,
protocols, and format to compose via YAML frontmatter. The bootstrap engine
reads these declarations from manifest.yaml and assembles a single coherent
prompt in this order:
- Identity (persona)
- Reasoning Protocols (one or more, in order)
- Classification Taxonomy (if applicable)
- Output Format (structure rules)
- Task (template with
{{param}}placeholders filled) - Non-Goals
Templates can chain via pipelines — each declares input_contract /
output_contract with artifact types (e.g., requirements-document →
design-document). The document-lifecycle pipeline chains
requirements → design, plus validation consuming requirements and
optionally design.
Component Conventions
All components use kebab-case filenames matching their name field.
Protocols have three categories with different scoping rules:
guardrails/— Cross-cutting, apply to all tasks (anti-hallucination, self-verification, operational-constraints)analysis/— Domain/language-specific checks (memory-safety-c, security-vulnerability). Language-specific protocols are separate files, not conditional blocks.reasoning/— Systematic reasoning approaches (root-cause-analysis, requirements-elicitation)
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.
- 1mo ago First seen · 139 lines · 1,144 tokens per session scan A 41b837845ec6
PromptKit copilot-instructions.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository microsoft/PromptKit (113 stars, last pushed 9d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 1,144 tokens to every session, about $0.0046 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.
Other instructions, from other repositories
vscode buildNext.instructions.md
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).
next.js AGENTS.md
AGENTS.md instructions for vercel/next.js, covering next.js development guide, codebase structure, monorepo overview, core package: packages/next and other important packages.
vscode oss-third-party-notices.instructions.md
Instructions for microsoft/vscode, covering vs code oss third-party-notices pipeline, architecture, pipeline flow in ci, cache eligibility and rollout and applying the notice (cutover).
langchain AGENTS.md
AGENTS.md instructions for langchain-ai/langchain, covering global development guidelines for the langchain monorepo, corridor security analysis, project architecture and context, monorepo structure and development tools & commands.
deepseek-harness AGENTS.md
AGENTS.md instructions for deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness, covering agents.md, pre-stable apis and released session data, repository layout, commands and host sandbox failures.
vscode copilot-instructions.md
Copilot instructions for microsoft/vscode, covering vs code copilot instructions, project overview, root folders, core architecture (src/ folder) and built-in extensions (extensions/ folder).