agent-template copilot-instructions.md

A set of GitHub Copilot instructions that tells an AI coding agent how to work within a repository. It makes AGENTS.md the main source of project rules and adds guidance for specifications, testing, scope, and commits.

In plain words
What is it for?
It guides feature-spec creation, code and test inspection, relevant testing, issue-based work, environment questions, and commit decisions.
Why use it?
It helps the agent follow existing project conventions and prevents it from making unapproved setup, broad changes, or commits.

Instructions file for GitHub Copilot

Install

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.

agentmods
npx agentmods add instructions/zwanan-github/agent-template/copilot-instructions
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Zwanan-github/agent-template

Made for: GitHub Copilot.

Per session 160 This file is loaded in full into every session.
When invoked 160 The same file — it is already loaded in full.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
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.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00160 $0.00160
Opus 5 $0.00080 $0.00080
Sonnet 5 $0.00032 $0.00032
Haiku 4.5 $0.00016 $0.00016

Measured yesterday against content hash f0b9dc2773b6, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

agent-template 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.

.github/copilot-instructions.md · 16 lines

What it actually says

GitHub Copilot Instructions

Follow the repository-wide agent instructions in AGENTS.md.

Important reminders:

  • Treat AGENTS.md as the source of truth.
  • For multi-step or user-visible work, create or update a feature spec under specs/features/ before implementation.
  • Keep changes scoped to the request.
  • Inspect existing code and test style before implementation; follow the project's current framework and conventions.
  • If the development/test environment is missing or unclear, ask before setup; propose Docker only when configuration exists or approval is given.
  • Write unit tests when practical, run relevant tests, and report anything that could not be run.
  • Do not create commits unless the user explicitly asks.

When working from an issue, also follow the acceptance criteria and constraints in that issue.

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.

  1. yesterday First seen · 16 lines · 160 tokens per session scan A f0b9dc2773b6

Subscribe to this mod's changes

agent-template copilot-instructions.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository Zwanan-github/agent-template (2 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 160 tokens to every session, about $0.0008 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.

Related

Other instructions, from other repositories