vscode-copilot-customization

You can customize Copilot in VS Code by using structured frontmatter-driven guidance to configure project-wide instructions, custom agents, prompts, and hooks. This provides centralized templates and patterns to quickly set up and reuse advanced behaviors across your projects.

A decision matrix helps you choose the right Copilot customization type for your scenario, distinguishing between copilot-instructions.md, AGENTS.md, .agent.md, and SKILL.md. Use these files to define project-wide instructions or portable agent capabilities within VS Code workflows.

Creating custom agent skills and hooks in VS Code involves defining frontmatter with a name and description, then following structured templates for prompts and agents. You can also use optional resources directories like scripts/, references/, and assets/ to support your customizations.

Yes, you can reuse Copilot customizations and agent plugins across projects by implementing a progressive loading model for Skill Units. This approach supports metadata, instructions, and resources, allowing individual developers and teams to share and apply consistent configurations.

Yes, frontmatter metadata is required to configure Copilot agent skills in VS Code. The customization process enforces frontmatter requirements, specifically mandating a name and description, to properly define and coordinate your custom agents, prompts, and hooks.

Frontmatter-driven Copilot customization in VS Code requires strict adherence to the name and description metadata fields. While it supports optional resources directories, the progressive loading model for Skill Units means incomplete metadata or missing resources will prevent the customizations from loading correctly.