fix: hve-core-all v3.3.101 ships broken agent symlinks (malformed format on Windows)

[Dongbumlee]

Component

Custom Agents

Bug Description

The hve-core-all v3.3.101 plugin bundle ships its agent definitions as symlinks pointing into .github/agents/*.agent.md. On Windows (git default core.symlinks=false), these symlinks materialize as small text stubs whose only content is the link target path. The Copilot CLI then parses each file as an agent definition, finds no YAML frontmatter, and emits a "malformed format" warning for every agent.

All 54 files under plugins/hve-core-all/agents/**/*.md are affected. Example installed file content on Windows:

../../../../.github/agents/ado/ado-backlog-manager.agent.md

The published bundle includes only the symlink stubs; the .github/agents/ target directory is not present in the installed package, so resolving the links locally also fails.

Second, related bug — dangling symlink at the release tag: plugins/hve-core-all/agents/hve-core/task-challenger.md points to .github/agents/hve-core/task-challenger.agent.md, but that target does not exist at tag hve-core-v3.3.101 (it exists only on main). So that symlink is dangling in the released version.

Environment:

• OS: Windows
• Plugin: hve-core-all, marketplace hve-core, version 3.3.101 (installed via Copilot CLI marketplace)

Expected Behavior

All bundled custom agents load correctly on Windows with valid YAML frontmatter, and no "malformed format" warnings appear at CLI startup. Every symlink target should exist as of the release tag.

Steps to Reproduce

1. On Windows, install the hve-core-all v3.3.101 plugin via the Copilot CLI marketplace.
2. Start the Copilot CLI.
3. Observe "malformed format" warnings for the hve-core agents; none of them load.

Additional Context

Root causes

1. Plugin bundles ship symlinks that degrade to text stubs on Windows (core.symlinks=false), and the symlink targets under .github/agents/ are not included in the distributable.
2. The task-challenger symlink target is missing at tag hve-core-v3.3.101.

Suggested fixes

1. Publish resolved file copies in the plugin bundles instead of symlinks (or have packaging/installer dereference symlinks when producing the distributable).
2. Ensure all symlink targets exist as of the release tag.

Local workaround
Replace each stub .md with the real content from https://raw.githubusercontent.com/microsoft/hve-core/<tag>/.github/agents/... (use main for task-challenger). Verified this resolves all 54 agents.

[JoshLuedeman]

Independent confirmation on Windows that this is still reproducible, and that the documented workaround does not help.

Environment: Windows, Copilot CLI 1.0.72, Developer Mode on, global core.symlinks=true. A direct symlink-creation probe succeeds, so the machine is symlink-capable — yet the install fails outright:

> copilot plugin install hve-core-all@hve-core
Failed to install plugin: Error: Failed to install plugin: Access is denied. (os error 5)

A plugin that ships real files (fabric-collection) installs fine on the same machine, which points at the bundled directory symlinks rather than the environment. So enabling Developer Mode / core.symlinks isn't a viable workaround here — the real-file copies in #2443 are the fix.

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_{🤖 Drafted by GitHub Copilot.}