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Using agent-skills with GitHub Copilot

This repo is already set up for GitHub Copilot — skills live in .github/skills/ and personas in .github/agents/. Use this guide to install them into another repository.

Setup

Skills

Copilot discovers agent skills from .github/skills/, .claude/skills/, or .agents/skills/. Copy the skills you want:

mkdir -p .github/skills
cp -r /path/to/agent-skills/skills/test-driven-development      .github/skills/
cp -r /path/to/agent-skills/skills/code-review-and-quality      .github/skills/
# ...repeat for any other skills, or copy them all:
cp -r /path/to/agent-skills/skills/* .github/skills/

See Creating agent skills for GitHub Copilot for details.

Agent Personas (*.agent.md)

Important: GitHub Copilot requires custom agent files to be named *.agent.md. Files named *.md are silently ignored by Copilot. See VS Code custom agents docs for details.

mkdir -p .github/agents
cp /path/to/agent-skills/agents/code-reviewer.md    .github/agents/code-reviewer.agent.md
cp /path/to/agent-skills/agents/test-engineer.md    .github/agents/test-engineer.agent.md
cp /path/to/agent-skills/agents/security-auditor.md .github/agents/security-auditor.agent.md

Invoke agents in Copilot Chat:

  • @code-reviewer Review this PR
  • @test-engineer Analyze test coverage for this module
  • @security-auditor Check this endpoint for vulnerabilities

Custom Instructions (User Level)

For skills you want across all repositories:

  1. Open VS Code → Settings → GitHub Copilot → Custom Instructions
  2. Add your most-used skill summaries

Recommended Configuration

.github/copilot-instructions.md

GitHub Copilot supports project-level instructions via .github/copilot-instructions.md.

# Project Coding Standards

## Testing
- Write tests before code (TDD)
- For bugs: write a failing test first, then fix (Prove-It pattern)
- Test hierarchy: unit > integration > e2e (use the lowest level that captures the behavior)
- Run `npm test` after every change

## Code Quality
- Review across five axes: correctness, readability, architecture, security, performance
- Every PR must pass: lint, type check, tests, build
- No secrets in code or version control

## Implementation
- Build in small, verifiable increments
- Each increment: implement → test → verify → commit
- Never mix formatting changes with behavior changes

## Boundaries
- Always: Run tests before commits, validate user input
- Ask first: Database schema changes, new dependencies
- Never: Commit secrets, remove failing tests, skip verification

Usage Tips

  1. Keep instructions concise — Copilot instructions work best when focused. Summarize the key rules rather than including full skill files.
  2. Use agents for review — The code-reviewer, test-engineer, and security-auditor agents are designed for Copilot's agent model.
  3. Reference in chat — When working on a specific phase, paste the relevant skill content into Copilot Chat for context.
  4. Combine with PR reviews — Set up Copilot to review PRs using the code-reviewer agent persona.