Enhance your GitHub Copilot experience with community-contributed instructions, prompts, and configurations. Get consistent AI assistance that follows your team's coding standards and project requirements.

🎯 GitHub Copilot Customization Features

GitHub Copilot provides three main ways to customize AI responses and tailor assistance to your specific workflows, team guidelines, and project requirements:

🔧 Custom Instructions	📝 Reusable Prompts	🎭 Custom Chat Modes
Define common guidelines for tasks like code generation, reviews, and commit messages. Describe how tasks should be performed Benefits: • Automatic inclusion in every chat request • Repository-wide consistency • Multiple implementation options	Create reusable, standalone prompts for specific tasks. Describe what should be done with optional task-specific guidelines Benefits: • Eliminate repetitive prompt writing • Shareable across teams • Support for variables and dependencies	Define chat behavior, available tools, and codebase interaction patterns within specific boundaries for each request Benefits: • Context-aware assistance • Tool configuration • Role-specific workflows

💡 Pro Tip: Custom instructions only affect Copilot Chat (not inline code completions). You can combine all three customization types - use custom instructions for general guidelines, prompt files for specific tasks, and chat modes to control the interaction context.

📝 Contributing

We welcome contributions! Please see our Contributing Guide for details on how to submit new instructions and prompts.

📋 Custom Instructions

Team and project-specific instructions to enhance GitHub Copilot's behavior for specific technologies and coding practices:

Angular Development Instructions - Angular-specific coding standards and best practices
ASP.NET REST API Development - Guidelines for building REST APIs with ASP.NET
Azure Functions Typescript - TypeScript patterns for Azure Functions
Bicep Code Best Practices - Infrastructure as Code with Bicep
Blazor - Blazor component and application patterns
Cmake Vcpkg - C++ project configuration and package management
Copilot Process tracking Instructions - See process Copilot is following where you can edit this to reshape the interaction or save when follow up may be needed
Genaiscript - AI-powered script generation guidelines
Generate Modern Terraform Code For Azure - Guidelines for generating modern Terraform code for Azure
Markdown - Documentation and content creation standards
Next.js + Tailwind Development Instructions - Next.js + Tailwind development standards and instructions
Python Coding Conventions - Python coding conventions and guidelines

💡 Usage: Copy these instructions to your .github/copilot-instructions.md file or create task-specific .instructions.md files in your workspace.

🎯 Reusable Prompts

Ready-to-use prompt templates for specific development scenarios and tasks. These .prompt.md files can be executed directly in VS Code chat as slash commands or through the Chat: Run Prompt command.

Backend Development

ASP.NET Minimal API with OpenAPI - Generate API endpoints with proper documentation
Entity Framework Core Best Practices - Database operations and ORM patterns
Multi-Stage Dockerfile - Optimized container builds for any technology

Testing & Quality

C# Async Programming - Asynchronous programming best practices
MSTest Best Practices - MSTest unit testing with data-driven tests
NUnit Best Practices - NUnit testing patterns and assertions
XUnit Best Practices - XUnit testing with modern C# features
JavaScript/TypeScript Jest - Jest testing patterns, mocking, and structure

Documentation & Project Management

Comment Code Generate Tutorial - Transform code into educational content
Generate Specs as Issues - Convert requirements into GitHub issues
My Issues
My Pull Requests

💡 Usage: Use /prompt-name in VS Code chat or run Chat: Run Prompt command. Prompt files support variables like ${input:name} for dynamic content.

🧩 Custom Chat Modes

You can define your own chat modes for specific scenarios, such as planning a new feature or getting the AI to behave a certain way when in a particular mode. Custom chat modes are defined in Markdown files with the .chatmode.md suffix and can be stored in the .github folder of your workspace or placed in your user profile. They should up in the "Ask/Edit/Agent" dropdown in the chat view.

Database Administrator Chat Mode - Work with PostgreSQL databases using the PostgreSQL extension.
Planning mode instructions - Generate an implementation plan for new features or refactoring existing code.
4.1 Beast Mode - A custom prompt to get GPT 4.1 to behave like a top-notch coding agent.

Use Chat > Configure Chat Modes from the Command Palette to add/edit custom modes.

📚 Additional Resources

VS Code Copilot Customization Documentation - Official Microsoft documentation
GitHub Copilot Chat Documentation - Complete chat feature guide
Custom Chat Modes - Advanced chat configuration
VS Code Settings - General VS Code configuration guide

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

🤝 Code of Conduct

Please note that this project is released with a Contributor Code of Conduct. By participating in this project you agree to abide by its terms.

™️ Trademarks

This project may contain trademarks or logos for projects, products, or services. Authorized use of Microsoft trademarks or logos is subject to and must follow Microsoft's Trademark & Brand Guidelines. Use of Microsoft trademarks or logos in modified versions of this project must not cause confusion or imply Microsoft sponsorship. Any use of third-party trademarks or logos are subject to those third-party's policies.