awesome-copilot/README.md

🤖 Awesome GitHub Copilot Customizations

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
• C# Development - Guidelines for building C# applications
• .NET MAUI - .NET MAUI component and application patterns
• Genaiscript - AI-powered script generation guidelines
• Generate Modern Terraform Code For Azure - Guidelines for generating modern Terraform code for Azure
• Guidance for Localization - Guidelines for localizing markdown documents
• 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
• Secure Coding and OWASP Guidelines - Comprehensive secure coding instructions for all languages and frameworks, based on OWASP Top 10 and industry best practices.

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

🎯 Reusable Prompts

Ready-to-use prompt templates for specific development scenarios and tasks, defining prompt text with a specific mode, model, and available set of tools.

• ASP.NET Minimal API with OpenAPI - Create ASP.NET Minimal API endpoints with proper OpenAPI documentation
• Azure Cost Optimize - Analyze Azure resources used in the app (IaC files and/or resources in a target rg) and optimize costs - creating GitHub issues for identified optimizations.
• Comment Code Generate A Tutorial - Transform this Python script into a polished, beginner-friendly project by refactoring the code, adding clear instructional comments, and generating a complete markdown tutorial.
• C# Async Programming Best Practices - Get best practices for C# async programming
• C# Documentation Best Practices - Ensure that C# types are documented with XML comments and follow best practices for documentation.
• MSTest Best Practices - Get best practices for MSTest unit testing, including data-driven tests
• NUnit Best Practices - Get best practices for NUnit unit testing, including data-driven tests
• XUnit Best Practices - Get best practices for XUnit unit testing, including data-driven tests
• Entity Framework Core Best Practices - Get best practices for Entity Framework Core
• Product Manager Assistant: Feature Identification and Specification - This workflow guides you through a systematic approach to identify missing features, prioritize them, and create detailed specifications for implementation.
• Javascript Typescript Jest - Best practices for writing JavaScript/TypeScript tests using Jest, including mocking strategies, test structure, and common patterns.
• Multi Stage Dockerfile - Create optimized multi-stage Dockerfiles for any language or framework
• My Issues - List my issues in the current repository
• My Pull Requests - List my pull requests in the current repository

💡 Usage: Use /prompt-name in VS Code chat, run Chat: Run Prompt command, or hit the run button while you have a prompt open.

🧩 Custom Chat Modes

Custom chat modes define specific behaviors and tools for GitHub Copilot Chat, enabling enhanced context-aware assistance for particular tasks or workflows.

• 4.1 Beast Mode - A custom prompt to get GPT 4.1 to behave like a top-notch coding agent.
• Debug Mode Instructions - Debug your application to find and fix a bug
• Planning mode instructions - Generate an implementation plan for new features or refactoring existing code.
• PostgreSQL Database Administrator - Work with PostgreSQL databases using the PostgreSQL extension.
• Prompt Engineer - A specialized chat mode for analyzing and improving prompts. Every user input is treated as a propt to be improved. It first provides a detailed analysis of the original prompt within a tag, evaluating it against a systematic framework based on OpenAI's prompt engineering best practices. Following the analysis, it generates a new, improved prompt.
• Refine Requirement or Issue Chat Mode - Refine the requirement or issue with Acceptance Criteria, Technical Considerations, Edge Cases, and NFRs

💡 Usage: Create new chat modes using the command Chat: Configure Chat Modes..., then switch your chat mode in the Chat input from Agent or Ask to your own mode.

📚 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

🛠️ Development Configuration

This repository uses various configuration files to ensure consistent code style and avoid issues with line endings:

• .editorconfig - Defines coding styles across different editors and IDEs
• .gitattributes - Ensures consistent line endings in text files
• .vscode/settings.json - VS Code-specific settings for this repository
• .vscode/extensions.json - Recommended VS Code extensions

💡 Note: All markdown files in this repository use LF line endings (Unix-style) to avoid mixed line endings issues. The repository is configured to automatically handle line endings conversion.

📄 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.