Visual Studio Code is a code editor that supports editing, navigating, understanding, debugging, and extending software projects. Developers use it for the edit-build-debug cycle, and the catalogue add-ons provide skills, instructions, and agents for working within the editor.
Borrowing it
Nothing to install: this file belongs to microsoft/vscode. 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/vscode/main/.github/copilot-instructions.mdgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/microsoft/vscodeWrote 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/vscode/copilot-instructions)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/microsoft/vscode/copilot-instructions"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/microsoft/vscode/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/vscode/copilot-instructions"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/microsoft/vscode/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 | $0.02731 | $0.02731 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.01092 | $0.01092 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00546 | $0.00546 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00273 | $0.00273 |
Grade A, and why
vscode 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 3d 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 — 163 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
VS Code Copilot Instructions
Project Overview
Visual Studio Code is built with a layered architecture using TypeScript, web APIs and Electron, combining web technologies with native app capabilities. The codebase is organized into key architectural layers:
Root Folders
src/: Main TypeScript source code with unit tests insrc/vs/*/test/foldersbuild/: Build scripts and CI/CD toolsextensions/: Built-in extensions that ship with VS Codetest/: Integration tests and test infrastructurescripts/: Development and build scriptsresources/: Static resources (icons, themes, etc.)out/: Compiled JavaScript output (generated during build)
Core Architecture (src/ folder)
src/vs/base/- Foundation utilities and cross-platform abstractionssrc/vs/platform/- Platform services and dependency injection infrastructuresrc/vs/editor/- Text editor implementation with language services, syntax highlighting, and editing featuressrc/vs/workbench/- Main application workbench for web and desktopworkbench/browser/- Core workbench UI components (parts, layout, actions)workbench/services/- Service implementationsworkbench/contrib/- Feature contributions (git, debug, search, terminal, etc.)workbench/api/- Extension host and VS Code API implementation
src/vs/code/- Electron main process specific implementationsrc/vs/server/- Server specific implementationsrc/vs/sessions/- Agent sessions window, a dedicated workbench layer for agentic workflows (sits alongsidevs/workbench, may import from it but not vice versa)
The core architecture follows these principles:
- Layered architecture - from
base,platform,editor, toworkbench - Dependency injection - Services are injected through constructor parameters
- If non-service parameters are needed, they need to come before the service parameters
- Contribution model - Features contribute to registries and extension points
- Cross-platform compatibility - Abstractions separate platform-specific 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.
- 3d ago Changed · +4 lines · +51 tokens per session 9206bebcb36f
- 9d ago Changed · +2 lines · +186 tokens per session 09664beeba53
- 1mo ago First seen · 157 lines · 2,494 tokens per session scan A d711289b5eff
vscode copilot-instructions.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository microsoft/vscode (193,657 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 2,731 tokens to every session, about $0.0109 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.
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