Global Instructions File Support

[searleser97]

Describe the feature or problem you'd like to solve

I am constantly repeating the process of creating an instructions file for every repo or worktree that I create with the same exact instructions

Proposed solution

Please add the option to be able to use a global instructions file that will work in every single repository or folder that copilot cli is running.

Example prompts or workflows

No response

Additional context

No response

[andyfeller]

Thank you for opening this issue, @searleser97! 🫶

Have you by chance seen this section of the /help command text touching on different locations copilot searches for custom instructions?

   Respects instructions sourced from various locations:
     `.github/instructions/**/*.instructions.md`
     `.github/copilot-instructions.md`
     `**/AGENTS.md`
     `CLAUDE.md`
     `GEMINI.md`
     `$HOME/.copilot/copilot-instructions.md`

Would that last option of local Copilot instructions work in this case? Or are you looking for copilot to search somewhere within your GitHub organization for instructions?

[searleser97]

that last option would work, please update public documentation with it please.

[ayush000]

Also I tried to ask copilot-cli to do it, but it said that ain't possible

[mdc-git]

$HOME/.copilot/copilot-instructions.md doesn't seem to get picked up consistently in a vscode devcontainer at least. Added instructions to /home/vscode/.copilot/copilot-instructions.md, got completely ignored. Asked Copilot CLI to import $HOME/.copilot/copilot-instructions.md manually twice, got two options presented to import

• /root/.copilot/copilot-instructions.md
• /home/luca/.copilot/copilot-instructions.md , totally unrelated random dir

For now, I created an alias to manually load instructions, but it's cumbersome.

copilot --allow-all-paths --allow-all-tools -p "read @/home/vscode/.copilot/copilot-instructions.md and respond with 'OK'" 2> /dev/null && copilot --continue

[tuminoid]

#567 is quite clear that the pick-up from the locations listed in /help does not work.

[credmond]

It bugs me that none of the Github Copilot offerings (not just CLI) seem to have a simple debug log option to spit out what they've found (files, etc.), what's being applied, what overrides what.

Instead, countless folks must waste their time scratching their heads wondering if a file was applied or not, all the time.

And when it comes to IDEs with multi-projects/modules, it's a bit of a circus. Almost seems random, but without proper logs or documentation to at least maybe figure out what's going on, it's wholly unreliable.