GitHub Copilot Customizer (Unofficial)

A Visual Studio extension that gives you a UI for authoring and managing GitHub Copilot customization files: workspace instructions, file-based instructions, prompt files, custom agents, agent skills, and hooks.

GitHub Copilot's customization UI (for managing instruction files, prompts, agents, and skills) is available in VS Code, but unfortunately it is not available in Visual Studio. This extension fills that gap by bringing the same file-management experience directly into Visual Studio.

Disclaimer

This is an independent, community-built tool. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by GitHub, Inc. or Microsoft.

"GitHub" and "GitHub Copilot" are trademarks of GitHub, Inc.; used solely to describe the customization file formats this extension edits (nominative fair use).

Screenshots

Tools menu entry — open the GitHub Copilot Customizer tool window from the VS Tools menu.

GitHub Copilot Customizer tool window — select a category on the left, enter a name, and click Add to create the file in the correct .github subfolder.

Customizer tool window

What It Manages

Kind	Path pattern	Active in VS today
Workspace instructions	`.github/copilot-instructions.md`, `AGENTS.md`, `CLAUDE.md`	Yes
File-based instructions	`*/.instructions.md` (commonly `.github/instructions/`)	VS Code only
Prompt files	`.github/prompts/*.prompt.md`	VS Code only
Custom agents	`.github/agents/*.agent.md`	VS Code only
Agent skills	`.github/skills/<name>/SKILL.md` (+ supporting files)	VS Code only
Hooks	`.github/hooks.json` (+ scripts)	VS Code only

Visual Studio's GitHub Copilot today only consumes .github/copilot-instructions.md at runtime. The other file types are runtime-active only in VS Code, but this extension lets you maintain them from Visual Studio so your VS Code teammates' customizations stay in sync.

Features

Dockable GitHub Copilot Customizer tool window (available from the Tools menu)
Tree grouped by Kind, backed by a file-system watcher
Name-based file creation: enter a base name and click Add — the correct suffix and .github subfolder are chosen automatically
JSON-Schema validation surfaced in the status bar
Workspace-wide validator command
Options page under Tools → Options → GitHub Copilot Customizer

Requirements

Visual Studio 2022 17.9 or later, or Visual Studio 2026

Author

Created by Siddhesh Prabhugaonkar — Microsoft Certified Trainer & AI Consultant

GitHub: github.com/siddheshp
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/siddheshprabhugaonkar

License

MIT