Presentation materials for a February 2026 talk on customizing GitHub Copilot (Agent Mode in VS Code, CLI, and SDK) — with cross-references to Claude Code for conceptual continuity.
| Slide | Topic |
|---|---|
| 0 | Title |
| 1 | The Problem — why these terms confuse people |
| 2 | The Mental Model — persistence × scope |
| 3 | Instructions |
| 4 | Prompt Files |
| 5 | Skills |
| 6 | Agents |
| 7 | Sub-Agents |
| 8 | The Spectrum — full comparison & decision flow |
| 9 | The Multi-Agent Reality — VS Code as hub |
| 10 | Practical Operating Model — five-step plan |
| 11 | Handoffs |
| 12 | Key Takeaways |
| 13 | Bonus: Hooks — lifecycle automation |
| sources | Sources & Further Reading |
- Instructions —
copilot-instructions.md,*.instructions.md,AGENTS.md - Prompt Files —
.prompt.mdwith variables, tool/agent references - Skills —
SKILL.mdbundles (GA as of VS Code 1.109) - Agents —
.agent.mdpersonas with tools and model preferences - Sub-Agents — isolated delegation between agents
- Handoffs — guided user-in-the-loop workflows
- Hooks — deterministic shell commands at agent lifecycle points
The slides use standard Markdown with Mermaid diagrams. They render well in:
- GitHub's markdown viewer (Mermaid supported natively)
- VS Code with a Markdown preview extension
- Any static site generator that supports Mermaid (Docusaurus, MkDocs, etc.)
All citations were verified against live documentation as of February 24, 2026. AI work moves FAST - if you see something that looks incorrect, it may not be February 24, 2026 anymore :) Source links are collected in presentation/sources.md.