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.
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 skills add microsoft/vscode --skill create-instructionsgit 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/skills/microsoft/vscode/create-instructions)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/microsoft/vscode/create-instructions"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/microsoft/vscode/create-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.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/microsoft/vscode/create-instructions"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/microsoft/vscode/create-instructions.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>- Snyk pass
- NVIDIA SkillSpector warn
SkillSpector: 1 finding, up to medium
These are SkillSpector’s own severities. On a checked sample its high-severity flags on skills were ~96% false positives — a documented command, a public API, a “never do X” rule — so we show them as a caution to read, not a verdict. Why →
- medium Memory Poisoning · line 12 Skill injects content designed to persist in agent memory or context across interactions. Persistent injection can alter agent behavior long after the initial interaction.Fix: Do not allow untrusted input to persist in agent memory or context. Validate all content before storing and implement memory isolation between sessions.
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 | $0.00019 | $0.00287 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00008 | $0.00115 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00004 | $0.00057 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00002 | $0.00029 |
Grade A, and why
create-instructions 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.
What it actually says
Related skill: agent-customization. Load and follow instructions.md for template and principles.
Guide the user to create an instructions file.
Extract from Conversation
First, review the conversation history. If the user has been correcting the agent's output or asking for specific patterns (e.g., "always use X", "never do Y", "follow this style"), generalize that into a persistent instruction. Extract:
- Corrections or preferences mentioned during the conversation
- Coding patterns the user enforced or requested
- Project-specific conventions referenced
Clarify if Needed
If no clear rule emerges from the conversation, clarify:
- Should this apply everywhere or only to specific files?
- Which technologies or file types are affected?
- Is this a hard rule or a preference?
Explore the codebase using subagents if you need more context.
Iterate
- Draft the instruction and save it.
- Identify the most ambiguous or weak parts and ask about those.
- Once finalized, summarize what the instruction enforces, suggest example prompts to see it in action, and propose related customizations to create next.
Remember to follow the agent-customization guidelines to create highly effective 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.
- 2mo ago First seen · 31 lines · 19 tokens per session scan A 590f0d748a0c
create-instructions is a skill published in the GitHub repository microsoft/vscode (195,109 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 19 tokens to every session and 287 once invoked, about $0.0001 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 2026-09-03.
create-instructions compared with skills from other repositories
| Mod | Type | Stars | Last push | Licence | Scan | Tokens | Works with |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| create-instructionsmicrosoft/vscode | Skill | 195k | today | MIT | A | 19 | Claude Code |
| cyrene-plan-modePlaya-0v0/Cyrene-Agent | Skill | 597 | 1mo ago | MIT | A | 37 | Claude Code, Codex |
| cyrene-plugin-devPlaya-0v0/Cyrene-Agent | Skill | 597 | 1mo ago | MIT | A | 61 | Claude Code, Codex |
| cyrene-exam-paperPlaya-0v0/Cyrene-Agent | Skill | 597 | 1mo ago | MIT | A | 64 | Claude Code, Codex |
| cyrene-work-hygienePlaya-0v0/Cyrene-Agent | Skill | 597 | 1mo ago | MIT | A | 56 | Claude Code, Codex |
| cyrene-obsidian-workspacePlaya-0v0/Cyrene-Agent | Skill | 597 | 1mo ago | MIT | A | 42 | Claude Code, Codex |
| cyrene-diagramPlaya-0v0/Cyrene-Agent | Skill | 597 | 1mo ago | MIT | A | 50 | Claude Code, Codex |