What is github-copilot-agent copilot-instructions.md?

A set of project instructions for GitHub Copilot agents working in a template repository for Copilot customizations. It describes where agents, prompts, skills, instructions, hooks, and connection settings belong, along with code-style rules.

Use it when adding or updating Copilot agents, prompt files, skills, hooks, connection settings, and Conventional Commit messages in that repository.

It gives Copilot a consistent understanding of the project layout and naming conventions, reducing misplaced files and inconsistent changes.

How trsdn/github-copilot-agent configures GitHub Copilot

Reuse

Borrowing it

Nothing to install: this file belongs to trsdn/github-copilot-agent. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.

Copy the file

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/trsdn/github-copilot-agent/main/.github/copilot-instructions.md

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/trsdn/github-copilot-agent

Made for: GitHub Copilot.

Wrote 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.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/trsdn/github-copilot-agent/copilot-instructions/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/instructions/trsdn/github-copilot-agent/copilot-instructions)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/trsdn/github-copilot-agent/copilot-instructions"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/trsdn/github-copilot-agent/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.

Your own site · 80×15

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/trsdn/github-copilot-agent/copilot-instructions"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/trsdn/github-copilot-agent/copilot-instructions.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session 590 This file is loaded in full into every session.

When invoked 590 The same file — it is already loaded in full.

Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.

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 5.1	$0.00590	$0.00590
Opus 5.5	$0.00236	$0.00236
Sonnet 5.5	$0.00118	$0.00118
Haiku 4.5	$0.00059	$0.00059

Measured 2mo ago against content hash a8bf6ce2ded4, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

github-copilot-agent 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 2mo 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.

.github/copilot-instructions.md · 45 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 45 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Copilot Instructions

These instructions are automatically applied to every Copilot Chat session in this workspace.

Project Context

This is a GitHub Copilot Customization Blueprint — a template repository for bootstrapping Copilot agents, prompt files, instructions, skills, and hooks in any project.

Conventions

All customization files live under .github/ (agents, prompts, skills, instructions, hooks)
Use Conventional Commits for all commit messages: <type>(<scope>): <description>
Allowed types: feat, fix, docs, style, refactor, perf, test, build, ci, chore, revert
Agent files: .agent.md with YAML frontmatter (description required, name and tools recommended)
Prompt files: .prompt.md with YAML frontmatter (description recommended)
Skill files: SKILL.md in a named directory under .github/skills/<name>/ (alt locations: .claude/skills/, .agents/skills/)
Hook configs: JSON files in .github/hooks/ defining lifecycle automation
MCP configs: .vscode/mcp.json for VS Code workspace MCP, mcp-servers in GitHub Copilot agent frontmatter, .mcp.json in plugins
Agent plugin manifests: plugin.json in plugin roots; keep example manifests inert as *.example.json
Tool sets group built-in, MCP, and extension tools; keep examples inert unless deliberately enabled via VS Code
Use user-invocable and disable-model-invocation instead of the deprecated infer field
For multi-agent workspaces, AGENTS.md (root or experimental nested) and CLAUDE.md are also recognized as always-on instructions
For monorepos opened in a subfolder, enable chat.useCustomizationsInParentRepositories to discover customizations from the repo root

File Structure

.github/
├── agents/           # Custom agent profiles (.agent.md)
├── prompts/          # Prompt templates (.prompt.md)
├── instructions/     # Scoped instruction files (*.instructions.md)
├── skills/           # Agent Skills (each in its own directory with SKILL.md)
├── hooks/            # Hook configuration files (*.json)
├── workflows/        # GitHub Actions (release, validate, commit-lint)
└── copilot-instructions.md  # This file

Read the full file on GitHub · 45 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.

2mo ago First seen · 45 lines · 590 tokens per session scan A a8bf6ce2ded4

Subscribe to this mod's changes

github-copilot-agent copilot-instructions.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository trsdn/github-copilot-agent (3 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 590 tokens to every session, about $0.0024 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 2026-08-31.

ai-assistant blueprint copilot-agent developer-tools github-copilot prompt-engineering

github-copilot-agent copilot-instructions.md next to 6 instructions from other repositories
Mod	Type	Stars	Last push	Licence	Scan	Tokens	Works with
github-copilot-agent copilot-instructions.mdtrsdn/github-copilot-agent	Instructions file	3	2mo ago	MIT	A	590	GitHub Copilot
ai-agent-rules-generator ratelimitting.instructions.mdsavedpixel/ai-agent-rules-generator	Instructions file	8	6mo ago	MIT	A	522	GitHub Copilot
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next.js AGENTS.mdvercel/next.js	Instructions file	143k	today	MIT	A	7,461	Codex, OpenCode
langchain AGENTS.mdlangchain-ai/langchain	Instructions file	149k	yesterday	MIT	A	4,680	Codex, OpenCode
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github-copilot-agent: Instructions file for GitHub Copilot