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-tokens.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-tokens)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/microsoft/vscode/design-tokens"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/microsoft/vscode/design-tokens/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-tokens"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/microsoft/vscode/design-tokens.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 | $0.02578 | $0.02578 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.01031 | $0.01031 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00516 | $0.00516 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00258 | $0.00258 |
Grade A, and why
vscode design-tokens.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 — 141 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Design tokens for sizing, spacing & radii
These tokens are the moves, not the reasoning. They implement the design philosophy (Values → Principles → Moves): reach for a token after naming the feeling and the principle it serves - a radius is an elevation tier, a font is a type role, not a number. See the
design-philosophyskill for the full vocabulary, worked examples, and how to give UI feedback in design terms.
VS Code ships a design-system size ramp. These tokens are registered in baseSizes.ts and emitted as --vscode-* CSS variables. When generating or editing CSS, use the token variable instead of a raw px value wherever a token exists for that value. This keeps new UI visually consistent with the design system.
Every
--vscode-*size var you reference must already exist in vscode-known-variables.json ("sizes"array, alphabetically sorted) or stylelint/hygiene fails. Adding a new token means adding it both inbaseSizes.tsand that JSON file.
Spacing — padding, margin, gap
Use for padding, margin, gap, and fixed width/height of spacers. The numeric token name is the value in tenths of a px (size200 = 20px).
| px | Variable |
|---|---|
| 0 | --vscode-spacing-sizeNone |
| 2 | --vscode-spacing-size20 |
| 4 | --vscode-spacing-size40 |
| 6 | --vscode-spacing-size60 |
| 8 | --vscode-spacing-size80 |
| 10 | --vscode-spacing-size100 |
| 12 | --vscode-spacing-size120 |
| 16 | --vscode-spacing-size160 |
| 20 | --vscode-spacing-size200 |
| 24 | --vscode-spacing-size240 |
| 28 | --vscode-spacing-size280 |
| 32 | --vscode-spacing-size320 |
| 36 | --vscode-spacing-size360 |
| 40 | --vscode-spacing-size400 |
/* token */ padding: var(--vscode-spacing-size80) var(--vscode-spacing-size120);
/* also ok */ padding: 8px 12px; /* on-scale raw px is fine */
/* avoid */ padding: 5px 7px; /* off-scale - breaks rhythm */
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 · -52 lines · -49 tokens per session bdb0afb03634
- 1mo ago First seen · 193 lines · 2,627 tokens per session scan A 7a61a02efbc0
vscode design-tokens.instructions.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository microsoft/vscode (194,219 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 2,578 tokens to every session, about $0.0103 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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