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 skills/github/gh-aw/github-copilot-agent-tips-and-tricksnpx skills add github/gh-aw --skill github-copilot-agent-tips-and-tricksgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/github/gh-awWhat 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 | $0.00024 | $0.01661 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00012 | $0.00830 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00005 | $0.00332 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00002 | $0.00166 |
Grade A, and why
github-copilot-agent-tips-and-tricks 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 — 231 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
GitHub Copilot Agent Tips and Tricks
Use this guide to find, review, and work with Copilot coding agent pull requests in gh-aw.
Identifying Copilot Agent PRs
Branch Naming Convention
Copilot coding agent branches use the copilot/ prefix, which makes them easy to identify and filter.
Examples from this repository:
copilot/add-cache-for-imported-workflowscopilot/fix-istruthy-bundling-issuecopilot/update-audit-command-copilotcopilot/refactor-mcp-tool-rendering
Author Attribution
Copilot coding agent PRs are typically authored by:
app/github-copilot- The GitHub Copilot bot account- Individual developers using Copilot as an assistant
Searching for Copilot Agent PRs
Using GitHub CLI (gh)
Prerequisites:
# Authenticate with GitHub CLI
gh auth login
Search by author (GitHub Copilot bot):
# List all PRs created by the Copilot bot
gh pr list --author "app/github-copilot" --limit 100
# Include closed PRs
gh pr list --author "app/github-copilot" --state all --limit 100
# Get detailed JSON output
gh pr list --author "app/github-copilot" --json number,title,author,headRefName,createdAt,state
Search by branch prefix:
# Find all PRs from copilot/* branches
gh pr list --search "head:copilot/" --state all
# Combine with other filters
gh pr list --search "head:copilot/ is:open"
gh pr list --search "head:copilot/ is:merged"
Filter with jq:
# Extract specific fields
gh pr list --limit 100 --json author,number,title,headRefName \
--jq '.[] | select(.headRefName | startswith("copilot/")) | {number, title, branch: .headRefName}'
# Filter by author containing "copilot"
gh pr list --limit 100 --json author,number,title \
--jq '.[] | select(.author.login | contains("copilot"))'
Using Git Commands
List copilot branches:
# Local and remote copilot branches
git branch -a | grep copilot
# Remote copilot branches only
git branch -r | grep copilot
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 · 231 lines · 24 tokens per session scan A 473ceb413e46
github-copilot-agent-tips-and-tricks is a skill published in the GitHub repository github/gh-aw (5,050 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed MIT. It adds 24 tokens to every session and 1,661 once invoked, about $0.0001 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 2026-08-30.
Other skills, from other repositories
c-github
Interact with GitHub using the gh CLI and jq. Manage PRs, issues, repositories, and Actions workflows. Make raw API calls with gh api for anything not covered by built-in commands.
watch-pr
Watch a GitHub pull request for CI status, reviews, comments, merge conflicts, and terminal states using the gh-watch extension. Use when the user wants to monitor a PR, wait for CI, or track PR progress.
watch-tag
Watch a GitHub repository for new tags using the gh-watch extension. Use when the user wants to be notified when a tag is created, when a release is cut, or when a tag that includes a specific commit appears (e.g. "tell me when my merge ships in a release").
watch-branch
Watch a GitHub branch for new commits using the gh-watch extension. Use when the user wants to be notified when new commits are pushed to a branch, monitor main for merges, or track branch activity.
watch-commit
Watch a GitHub commit for CI status changes using the gh-watch extension. Use when the user wants to monitor a commit's CI checks, wait for a build to finish, or track CI progress on a specific SHA.
update-architecture-docs
Generate or update the architecture documentation in docs/content/architecture/. Use on "update architecture docs", "generate architecture documentation", "regenerate architecture docs", or after any structural change to the codebase.