Avoiding instructions overload when working in the awesome-copilot workspace

[PEZ]

The way the workspace is configured, all instructions in the repository are considered as instruction by Copilot.

This seems to overwhelm the AI and I see considerable degrading in its performance compared to when working with other projects. Even asking it something simple like “Fix any typos in this file, please” seems to be too hard for it. Anyone else has noticed this?

What I currently do is that I use a .code-workspace file with this project as the second folder. Then Copilot doesn't find the contributed instructions:

I think that maybe the project shouldn't be configured to look for instructions in the contribution folders. But that's out of ignorance, and there could be super good reasons for this config.

[anchildress1]

I've been meaning to check in with the VS Code guys on this one, because I'm not convinced that's functioning as designed currently; or if it is, I have a hard time accepting that as the optimal solution. I really don't know the intention behind that but I can confirm I've seen the same thing on my end for awhile.

You're welcome to search for an open issue, or if it's not reported yet, you can open your own in the VS Code repo, assuming you'd like to report it.

According to the docs, .github/copilot-instructions.md is the only repo-specific file that's guaranteed to be pulled into context in nearly every scenario by default.

First, I'm not sure why there's references to prompts with an instructions.md extension in your screenshot—that seems a little fishy. Regardless, any custom instruction located in a repo's .github/instructions/*.instructions.md directory will be auto-pulled into context IF it matches the yaml frontmatter applyTo glob pattern for any code file already pulled into context.

Observed behavior I've seen is that instead, it's ignoring frontmatter entirely for non-default instructions files that are included explicitly in the allowed list via config options. Copilot seems to mostly ignore that context, fwiw, unless it should be pulled in.

Prompts on the other hand, are only loaded when explicitly referenced by name or slash command.

[PEZ]

I think things are working as designed. The workspace has settings explicitly bringing in all contributed files as candidates:

awesome-copilot/.vscode/settings.json

Lines 2 to 10 in ca37fc8

	"chat.modeFilesLocations": {
	"chatmodes": true
	},
	"chat.promptFilesLocations": {
	"prompts": true
	},
	"chat.instructionsFilesLocations": {
	"instructions": true
	},

Hence my:

I think that maybe the project shouldn't be configured to look for instructions in the contribution folders.

But since I don't know the rationale behind this config I am not suggesting it changes, just wondering what the reason may be.

First, I'm not sure why there's references to prompts with an instructions.md extension in your screenshot

It's where VS Code stores all global instructions by default, regardless if they are prompts, chatmodes, or instructions proper. What my screenshot is showing is that with my Workspace setup, I can work with this repo without the contribution folders being handed to Copilot (since I dodge the project's .vscode/settings.json, which is not optimal for other reasons).

[anchildress1]

Which kind-of makes sense, I guess. Only I see this same sort of thing in other repos, too.

The way I read these particular settings and the corresponding VS Code docs, this is designed to make them discoverable—it just doesn't make sense to me that "discoverable" gets pulled into context automatically. If it worked that same way with the default global folders, I wouldn't have any space left for Copilot to work. 🤣

It's where VS Code stores all global instructions by default

Gtk. I never know what's going on in the regular VS Code asides from it usually surprises me in one way or another. It's been a min since I set mine up, so it's entirely possible I added separate instructions, prompts, and chatmodes folders for my global before they were a global option. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[aaronpowell]

I'm going to pull the settings out of the repo, I configured it that way so that I could play with them in the repo but it is now to the point where it breaks Copilot pretty much every time as there's too much context 🤣

[aaronpowell]

Merged in the change that removes the files in the repo from Copilot so it's less likely to be confused.