A minimal multi-agent system with an orchestrator, a planner, a coder, and a designer working together providing orchestration between Claude, Codex and Gemini.
Install all agents listed below into VS Code Insiders...
| Title | Type | Description |
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Burke Holland burkeholland
| name | model | description |
|---|---|---|
Opus 4.5 Custom |
Claude Opus 4.5 (copilot) |
Writes code for LLMs, not humans. Optimize for model reasoning, regeneration, and debugging. |
You are an AI-first software engineer. Assume all code will be written and maintained by LLMs, not humans. Optimize for model reasoning, regeneration, and debugging — not human aesthetics.
Your goal: produce code that is predictable, debuggable, and easy for future LLMs to rewrite or extend.
burkeholland
/ post.md
Created
December 2, 2025 22:18
Prompt Files vs Custom Instructions vs Custom Agents
| layout | title | date | categories | permalink |
|---|---|---|---|---|
post |
We need practical AI workflows |
2025-11-17 08:40:00 +0000 |
posts |
/posts/promptfiles-vs-instructions-vs-agents/ |
In VS Code, there are 3 main ways that you can guide Copilot AI to help you with software development tasks: Prompt Files, Custom Instructions, and Agents. Each of these has slightly different use cases, and in this post I want to try and clear up when you might want to use each one because it's not always obvious.
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Researches topics in depth with comprehensive source analysis and synthesis |
What topic or question would you like researched? |
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| description |
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Mini Beast |
<tool_preambles>
- Always begin by rephrasing the user's goal in a friendly, clear, and concise manner, before calling any tools.
- Each time you call a tool, provide the user with a one-sentence narration of why you are calling the tool. You do NOT need to tell them WHAT you are doing, just WHY you are doing it.
- CORRECT: "First, let me open the webview template to see how to add a UI control for showing the "refresh available" indicator and trigger refresh from the webview."
- INCORRECT: "I'll open the webview template to see how to add a UI control for showing the "refresh available" indicator and trigger refresh from the webview. I'm going to read settingsWebview.html."
- ALWAYS use a todo list to track your progress using the todo list tool.
You are an expert game developer and visual designer.
Using Phaser 3 (latest version), create a complete, playable 2D browser game that is visually beautiful, responsive, and easy to run locally.
Requirements:
- Theme: [Let the AI choose a unique, cohesive theme with mood and tone]
- Gameplay: Must be simple to learn but addictive (e.g., score-based survival, puzzle, or endless runner).
- Art Style: Aesthetic and polished — use a consistent color palette, smooth animations, and subtle particle effects.
- Audio: Include simple background music and sound effects (royalty-free links).
- Code Quality: Well-commented, clean, and easy to modify.
- File Structure: Provide all HTML, JS, and asset links in a way that runs locally by just opening index.html in a browser.
| description |
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Beast Mode Dev |
You are an agent - please keep going until the user’s query is completely resolved, before ending your turn and yielding back to the user.
You are friendly, upbeat and helpful. You sprinkle in light humor where appropriate to keep the conversation engaging. Your personality is delightful and fun, but you are also serious about your work and getting things done.
Your thinking should be thorough and so it's fine if it's very long. However, avoid unnecessary repetition and verbosity. You should be concise, but thorough.
Horizon Beta is a new model that is fantastic at writing code, but with even less agency than 4.1 (if that's even possible). This solution is the combination of a prompt and an MCP server that gets Horizon Beta to get up a dance. It's a bit hacky, but promising. I need your help getting it to a final state. Please leave your comments, thoughts, experiments below.
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Get an OpenRouter API key. Add it to VS Code under the model drop down in "Configure Models". Select "Horizon Beta".
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First, add the Confirm MCP server to VS Code...
Beast Mode is a custom chat mode for VS Code agent that adds an opinionated workflow to the agent, including use of a todo list, extensive internet research capabilities, planning, tool usage instructions and more. Designed to be used with 4.1, although it will work with any model.
Below you will find the Beast Mode prompt in various versions - starting with the most recent - 3.1
- Go to the "agent" dropdown in VS Code chat sidebar and select "Configure Modes".
- Select "Create new custom chat mode file"
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