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/instructions/design-philosophy.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/design-philosophy)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/microsoft/vscode/design-philosophy"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/microsoft/vscode/design-philosophy/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/design-philosophy"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/microsoft/vscode/design-philosophy.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 | $0.00568 | $0.00568 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00227 | $0.00227 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00114 | $0.00114 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00057 | $0.00057 |
Grade A, and why
vscode design-philosophy.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.
What it actually says
Design philosophy
When you touch a visual surface, reason about it in design terms, not pixels. Design-system spacing, radii, type roles, and colors use named tokens/ramps where available. Raw literals remain valid for structural measurements or when no token exists.
Work in three layers - name the feeling, find the principle it breaks, then reach for the move that restores it:
- Values (how it should feel): Calm · Focused · Consistent · Delightful
- Principles (questions to ask):
- Quiet at rest, present on intent - is anything shouting when nothing's happening?
- Room to breathe - does this feel cramped, tight, or jagged?
- The interface explains itself - could someone understand this at a glance?
- One thing leads; the rest supports - where does the eye go first?
- Elevation is encoded, not eyeballed - does roundness match how far the surface floats?
- Sameness signals sameness - do two like things look identical, and is any difference intentional?
- Delight earns its keep - what does this help the user do?
- Moves (the mechanics): elevation tiers (Control 4 / Inner 6 / Outer 8; pills fully round), the spacing ramp, the type ramp (roles +
regular/semiBoldonly, no 500), two icon sizes (16 base / 12 compact), a 1px token for standard strokes,--vscode-*theme color, reveal-on-intent chrome, prefer a word to a mystery glyph.
Reach for a move only after naming the feeling and the principle - never instead. Describe a bug by its role/tier/ramp ("this overlay is rounded at the control tier"), not its number ("border-radius should be 6").
Full reference (values, principles, moves, worked examples, phrasebook, and feedback guidance): the design-philosophy skill. Token mechanics: design-tokens.instructions.md.
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 Changed · -11 lines · -9 tokens per session a8c69c627be3
- 1mo ago First seen · 37 lines · 577 tokens per session scan A 6a326096f71e
vscode design-philosophy.instructions.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository microsoft/vscode (194,219 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 568 tokens to every session, about $0.0023 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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