Getting it into your agent
One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.
npx agentmods add instructions/trsdn/github-copilot-cli/copilot-instructionsgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/trsdn/github-copilot-cliWhat 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 | $0.00592 | $0.00592 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00296 | $0.00296 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00118 | $0.00118 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00059 | $0.00059 |
Grade A, and why
github-copilot-cli 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 yesterday.
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 — 50 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 CLI session in this workspace.
Project Context
This is a GitHub Copilot CLI Customization Blueprint — a template repository for bootstrapping custom agents, instructions, skills, hooks, plugins, and MCP configurations for Copilot CLI usage, including sessions launched from the VS Code integrated terminal.
This blueprint is CLI-first — no VS Code dependency, but compatible customization formats should remain useful from VS Code when the same files are supported there.
Conventions
- Repository customization files live under
.github/(agents, skills, instructions, hooks, MCP) - 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.mdwith YAML frontmatter (descriptionrequired,nameandtoolsrecommended) - Agent frontmatter can include
target,model,mcp-servers,user-invocable, anddisable-model-invocation - Skill files:
SKILL.mdin a named directory under.github/skills/<name>/ - Skill frontmatter requires
nameanddescription; optional fields includelicense,allowed-tools,user-invocable, anddisable-model-invocation - Instruction files:
*.instructions.mdwith YAML frontmatter (applyToglob required) - Hook files: JSON files under
.github/hooks/*.jsonwithversion: 1 - MCP files:
.github/mcp.jsonfor repository MCP config,.mcp.jsonfor workspace MCP config - For cross-tool compatibility, also support
CLAUDE.md,GEMINI.md, andAGENTS.mdat repo root
File Structure
.github/
├── agents/ # Custom agent profiles (.agent.md)
├── instructions/ # Scoped instruction files (*.instructions.md)
├── skills/ # Agent Skills (each in its own directory with SKILL.md)
├── hooks/ # Optional Copilot CLI hook configuration (*.json)
├── workflows/ # GitHub Actions (release, validate, commit-lint)
├── mcp.json # Optional repository MCP configuration
└── copilot-instructions.md # This file
AGENTS.md # Root-level agent instructions
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.
- yesterday First seen · 50 lines · 592 tokens per session scan A 3938a61eb0d0
github-copilot-cli copilot-instructions.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository trsdn/github-copilot-cli (1 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 592 tokens to every session, about $0.0030 per session on Opus 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.
Other instructions, from other repositories
skill-recorder copilot-instructions.md
Instructions for microsoft/skill-recorder, covering repository instructions for coding agents and pull requests target the active release branch, not main.
copilotd copilot-instructions.md
Instructions for DamianEdwards/copilotd, covering copilot instructions for copilotd, build & run, build, run from source (auto-builds and passes all args through) and architecture.
ai-ready AGENTS.md
Instructions for johnpapa/ai-ready, covering ai-ready repo — agent guide, repository structure, tech stack, build & run and testing.
ai-ready copilot-instructions.md
Instructions for johnpapa/ai-ready, covering copilot instructions — ai-ready, project type, writing conventions, markdown and yaml (skill frontmatter, workflows, issue templates).
DPlex copilot-instructions.md
Instructions for Ron537/DPlex, covering dplex — copilot instructions, build & run, architecture, process boundaries and provider system (ai tool abstraction).
spec-kit-copilot AGENTS.md
Instructions for github/spec-kit-copilot, covering what this repository is, core skills plugin, core decisions (do not silently undo) and when revving the core skills plugin.