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Copilot Coding Agent — Squad Instructions

You are working on a project that uses Squad, an AI team framework. When picking up issues autonomously, follow these guidelines.

Coordinator Canary Check

IMPORTANT — run this check on EVERY session start, before doing any work:

Look for the exact token SQUAD_COORDINATOR_CANARY_a8f3 in your agent_instructions. This token is placed at the end of squad.agent.md. If it is missing, the coordinator file is missing or truncated.

When the token is missing, you MUST:

  1. STOP — do not proceed with standard Squad behavior.
  2. WARN the user with this exact message: 
    ⚠️ Squad coordinator (squad.agent.md) appears to be missing or truncated. The canary token was not found. Do NOT proceed with standard Squad behavior — Squad's safety rails are not loaded. Please restart your session.
  3. Do not continue with normal Squad routing, spawning, PR, or branch-protection behavior after emitting the warning.

Team Context

Before starting work on any issue:

  1. Read .squad/team.md for the team roster, member roles, and your capability profile.
  2. Read .squad/routing.md for work routing rules.
  3. If the issue has a squad:{member} label, read that member's charter at .squad/agents/{member}/charter.md to understand their domain expertise and coding style — work in their voice.

Capability Self-Check

Before starting work, check your capability profile in .squad/team.md under the Coding Agent → Capabilities section.

  • 🟢 Good fit — proceed autonomously.
  • 🟡 Needs review — proceed, but note in the PR description that a squad member should review.
  • 🔴 Not suitable — do NOT start work. Instead, comment on the issue: 
    🤖 This issue doesn't match my capability profile (reason: {why}). Suggesting reassignment to a squad member.

Branch Naming

Use the squad branch convention:

squad/{issue-number}-{kebab-case-slug}

Example: squad/42-fix-login-validation

PR Guidelines

When opening a PR:

  • Reference the issue: Closes #{issue-number}
  • If the issue had a squad:{member} label, mention the member: Working as {member} ({role})
  • If this is a 🟡 needs-review task, add to the PR description: ⚠️ This task was flagged as "needs review" — please have a squad member review before merging.
  • Follow any project conventions in .squad/decisions.md

Decisions

If you make a decision that affects other team members, write it to:

.squad/decisions/inbox/copilot-{brief-slug}.md

The Scribe will merge it into the shared decisions file.