Cloud.gov Copilot Instructions

Reusable instruction files for AI coding assistants that encapsulate cloud.gov platform guidance, security best practices, and FedRAMP compliance patterns.

What's Included

Drop these files into any project deployed to cloud.gov and your AI assistant instantly understands the platform.

Instruction Files

Six task-specific guides covering deployment, manifests, services, CI/CD, security, and logging — each scoped to relevant file types.

Agent Behaviors

Safety guardrails in AGENTS.md prevent destructive CF commands from running without explicit confirmation.

Custom Agents

A compliance-docs agent that generates Control Implementation Matrices and System Security Plan sections.

Skills

A cf-troubleshoot skill for diagnosing common cloud.gov and Cloud Foundry issues directly in Copilot Chat.

Key Features

🛡

AI Safety Guardrails

Destructive commands like cf delete always require confirmation. Production environments get extra warnings.

📋

NIST Control References

Security-relevant generated code automatically includes NIST SP 800-53 control IDs in comments and docstrings.

☁

Cloud.gov Native

Built specifically for cloud.gov's FedRAMP Moderate environment — covers services, buildpacks, and egress rules.

🔧

Fully Customizable

Add project-specific instructions, extend agent behaviors, or create new skills tailored to your team.

Quick Start

  1. Copy files into your project

    Download the latest release and copy the instruction files:

    curl -L https://github.com/adhocteam/cloud-gov-instructions/archive/refs/tags/v1.1.0.tar.gz | tar xz
cp -r cloud-gov-instructions-1.1.0/.github/copilot-instructions.md your-project/.github/
cp -r cloud-gov-instructions-1.1.0/.github/instructions your-project/.github/
cp -r cloud-gov-instructions-1.1.0/.github/agents your-project/.github/
cp cloud-gov-instructions-1.1.0/AGENTS.md your-project/
  2. Customize for your project

    Update copilot-instructions.md with project-specific context and adjust agent behaviors in AGENTS.md to fit your team's workflow.

  3. Start developing

    GitHub Copilot will automatically use these instructions when editing files that match the configured patterns — manifests, workflows, application code, and more.

Instruction Files

Each file is scoped to specific file patterns so guidance activates only where it's relevant.

Deployment

Blue-green deployments, scaling strategies, health checks, and rollback patterns.

manifest*.yml Procfile .cfignore

Manifest

Complete manifest property reference, multi-environment setups, and variable interpolation.

manifest*.yml vars*.yml

Services

RDS, S3, Redis, and Elasticsearch integration with VCAP_SERVICES credential parsing.

*.py *.js *.go *.java

CI/CD

GitHub Actions workflows, service account auth, and automated deployment pipelines.

.github/workflows/*.yml

Security

FedRAMP compliance, secrets management, NIST control mapping, and ATO support.

*.py *.js *.go manifest*.yml

Logging

Structured JSON logging to stdout, log drain configuration, and audit trail patterns.

*.py *.js *.go manifest*.yml

Resources

cloud.gov Docs

docs.cloud.gov — Official platform documentation.

Cloud Foundry Docs

docs.cloudfoundry.org — Upstream CF documentation.

NIST SP 800-53

Rev 5 — Security and privacy controls reference.