GitHub Copilot

Every .github/ file I add to a repo either loads on every Copilot request or only when the task calls for it. Mixing those two up is the main way Copilot chat gets slow and unfocused. My .claude/skills/ setup for this blog’s repo already runs on that principle, so when Copilot shipped Agent Skills as the on-demand counterpart to copilot-instructions.md, the question was which convention belonged in which bucket. See Configuring GitHub Copilot Custom Instructions for the always-on side’s setup mechanics. ...

I set up Copilot instructions on a CDK project and went looking for confirmation that the structure actually matched GitHub’s model, rather than carrying over an assumption from Claude Code. Claude Code works by walking the directory tree and picking up any CLAUDE.md it finds in the current or parent folder - drop a file next to the code it should govern, and Claude finds it. Copilot has no equivalent “drop a file in the folder” convention. It centralises everything under .github/ instead, and scopes by path through frontmatter rather than by file location. ...