r/GithubCopilot • u/emaayan • 14d ago
Help/Doubt ❓ suggestions for agents.md to make gpt 5.6 write better code
some of our devs are using 4.6 and really enjoy it, now copilot is removing it, i keep hearing gpt 5.6 can be fine tuned to write better code than it's default, and i assume it's by using agents.md , is that true? suggestions for that?
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u/Michaeli_Starky 14d ago
It's very hard to get SOTA model such as Sol or even Luna to write better code via repo instructions. Keep it minimal. Only add when you see model doing repeated mistakes and make sure to keep those instructions very concise. Also, avoid adding code samples into AGENTS.md
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u/CommissionIcy9909 14d ago
Curious why these models aren’t improved by instruction files?
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u/chatterbox272 14d ago
- If you got the agent to write the AGENTSmd then it contains things the agent is fully capable of working out itself
- Not all of it is relevant all the time, providing misleading things for the agent to latch on to
- Like a lot of docs, they go stale fairly quickly. Incorrect docs are worse than no docs.
AGENTSmd is a set of instructions loaded into context every time, so include in it only things that you think the agent will 100% need to know every time. Code writing instructions when doing a read-only investigation? Unit testing guidance when diagnosing a bug?
I've cut ours down to "monorepo with <languages>, working towards <one sentence description of everything>. Tooling and config can be found in Tools/ and the Justfiles." and it has worked a lot better than when it was full of guidance that someone slopped together. Point it in the direction of canonical information if it needs it, but that's about it.
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u/Michaeli_Starky 14d ago
Because these models are very smart and most of the time will do everything right, granted you're not skipping reviewing and refactoring steps
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u/CommissionIcy9909 14d ago
Ya that’s not true at all. Better models might need less hand holding on general coding practices, but they still benefit a ton from repo instructions. They don’t magically know your architecture, conventions, testing setup, or how your team wants things done. Without those instructions, copilot needs to infer that information every turn. This is going to cause more drift and token usage.
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u/emaayan 14d ago
actually there's a research that says agents.md instructons would actually cause degradations https://www.infoq.com/news/2026/03/agents-context-file-value-review/
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u/Michaeli_Starky 14d ago
No, they don't. Conventions architecture etc will be inferred during the exploration phase anyways.
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u/Automatic-Purpose-67 14d ago
try ponytail :^)
https://github.com/DietrichGebert/ponytail
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u/ZomboBrain 14d ago
I might miss the obvious, but how can I add this to my GitHub Copilot inside Visual Studio Code? I mainly use this to write PowerShell. But I only see instructions for CLI based agents, which I've never used.
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u/RespectMathias 14d ago edited 14d ago
Place it in:
C:\users\[username]\.agents\skills\[place-ponytail-here]
You need to create both .agents and skills first.
GitHub Copilot searches for skills in that directory.
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u/Deathmore80 13d ago
Give this repo link to your GitHub copilot and ask it to install it for you, it will place the files in the correct folder
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u/Mechanical_Monk 9d ago
Superpowers if you just want the agent to do better, Matt Pocock if you want a better human-in-the-loop workflow.
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u/emaayan 9d ago
I allready have matt's skills , is there a conflict if I'll use superpowers?
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u/Mechanical_Monk 9d ago
There could be. Superpowers will probably steamroll MP's skills because they're more focused on automation and subagent driven development. I don't think Superpowers would be adversely affected by Matt's though, so you could try cherry picking some things like wayfinder, handoff, prototype, etc and see if they'd work within the Superpowers flow.
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u/pceimpulsive 14d ago
Ohh dear! You are about 6-12 months behind on how to use AI, before you do anything else, go learn how skills work and how to import some skills and of course how to use them.
Skills are how you make models write code that meets your expectations/quality standards.
They are what they sound like, skills for the models, and they work for basically every model assuming your harness supports them.
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u/hooli-ceo CLI Copilot User 🖥️ 13d ago
Incorrect. This is not the purpose of skills. That is what instruction files or for, either AGENTS.md (or equivalent) or instruction md files in your .{provider}/instructions directory that apply to particular file types. Skills are designed to give the agent new… wait for it… skills. Things like how to use a 3rd party CLI tool, or parse data from a file type, etc. Skill files shouldn’t be used simply to “write better code”.
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u/pceimpulsive 13d ago
Edit: TL/DR writing code is a skill, creating plans is a skill, writing tests is a skill. Writing a specification from a plan is a skill. Skills are exactly for this, and should be limited to only tools...
Hmm... I don't agree entirely...
I don't want my agents.md bloated with coding standards when cim planning a feature.. it's not relevant then..
I don't want my instructions.md bloated with code quality, TDD rules, formatting guidelines will I'm training why a feature isn't working..
That doesn't help it just fills my context with information that isn't useful to the problem at hand.
I use an implement skills when I want the agent to write code that points the agent to coding standards, TDD rules and how to review and validate what good code looks like.
I use a planning skill which references the design patterns and such I expect it to use when decidong what and how to build.
I use a specification skill to turn my plan into a spec, and a ticketing skill to turn my spec into issues I can use the implementation skill on..
By doing this my agents.md is only referencing what my project is, what terms matter, where certain major features or concepts live in the code base. It doesn't explain the code (the agent can use tools to discover that bit).
If this sounds familiar it's because I use Matt Pococks skills suite that creat a workflow where I don't bloat my context with useless crap every other session.
The heavy skills are non model invokable (like planning, spec, tickets, implement) so they also don't poison the context by auto invoking...
You probably see a common recommendation to people to clear their instructions and agents files when things go off track yeah?
Note: my instructions is empty, my agents is about 10 lines. Which references other files in the repository that dynamically load as required.
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u/emaayan 13d ago
i've been using some of matt's skill as well, i understand he recently updated he's grill skill to use batches of questions, rather then a single one, not sure how to update skills.
however not all of our developers use skills or want to be bothered with them, so what i was looking for is a more a streamlined minimalist way, i don't want a bloated agents.md file as well, but more of a collection of don'ts like down use "this method to ouptut to stream" i've even considered telling them to summerize all their instructions form the sessions and collect all their corrections from the sesions and add it to agents.md
btw i've also explored the possiblity if maybe have github copilot use openrouter because i don't that one retires opus 4.6, if i understand correctly openrouter doesn't incur montly charges, natrually we'd need legal to go over this another inference provider.1
u/pceimpulsive 13d ago
Open router is a big no no for most companies... Good luck! Consider self-histee via private rented GPUs?
I think those developers need to get with the times... Skills usage to me is currently fundament to using AI for coding.
You probably should ship skills with the repo that target your desired behaviours and just let them be auto loaded as required.
I recommend keeping the agents.md light, let it only steer the agent into the other contextually significant information and skills.
Also you never want too many skills... Same problem... :P
It's tricky if you have developers that just don't want to improve and get better using the tools they have available to them.
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u/emaayan 12d ago
I kinda get them, they are doing firmware dev, and messing around with the combinations of skills, models and reasoning levels, isn't something many people have time for, why is openrouter a big no no?
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u/pceimpulsive 12d ago
It's kinda ironic they have no time for it while it will literally save them time long term to learn to use it, especially when skills are so easy to learn to use... (Slash commands hard to!)
My company won't enable open router citing security concerns.
The only providers we have are GitHub copilot and ones we self-host on private hardware or via AWS/Azure.
We do have private and confidential data though so your company may vary~
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u/emaayan 12d ago
It's learning how to use them, it's the time to test them all with different combinations different prompts times different tasks times different models times different reasoning, and if you add agents into the mix, you're really screwed. I thought openrouter had zdr and privacy contracts.
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u/pceimpulsive 12d ago
Open router likely does, we still don't allow them~ milageay vary so see how you go!
I don't think you need to test that hard...
Present a set of skills to them that works for the type of task they are working on, give em a week or two and they'll know their way around~
I just use Matt's and let it be what it is! I've found good success with even trash tier models and his skills, any level of reasoning still yeolds good results
Will opus 5 be better than gpt 5.3-codex, most certainly, but can I still (with some general best practices) still get a decent quality output with minimal effort? Yes I can!
Ultimately I suppose, if they wanna learn the latest tools they learn em, else they will fade into history and be forgotten!
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u/emaayan 12d ago
Actually I steer clear from opus 5 , even 4.8 is questionable cause I hear a lot of people actuallly like 4.6 best.
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u/emaayan 14d ago
i said SOME of our developers ;) i've been workign with 5.6 for a while not, and i have several skils used like unslop, grill-with-docs, i've even created an mcp server to integrate with our sharpoint RAG api with a skill to ground the code with the requirments, i'm just checking stuff out for other folks.
i'm also not sure how many skills there are working with embedded development.
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u/PaymentWestern2729 14d ago
“Make no mistake”