User Preferences Skill

When to Use

Activate when the user wants to:

• •Set up or update their coding preferences for the workspace
• •Configure custom conventions for logging, testing, or style
• •Create or edit a preferences file
• •Understand what preferences are currently active

This skill is also invoked internally by other skills to resolve the user's Profile before performing work.

Preference Resolution Order (highest priority first)

1. •Workspace-level: .vscode/copilot-preferences.yml
2. •Project-level: .github/copilot-preferences.yml
3. •Policy packs: policy/packs/*.yml (merged in alphabetical order)
4. •Module overrides: policy/modules/*.yml (per-module settings that override packs)
5. •Defaults: built-in sensible defaults (below)

Higher-priority sources override lower-priority ones. Within the same level, later files override earlier ones.

Preference Schema

# .github/copilot-preferences.yml (example)

# Coding style
style:
  language: typescript          # Primary language
  indent: 2                     # Spaces per indent
  quotes: single                # single | double
  semicolons: true              # Trailing semicolons
  max_line_length: 100

# Testing conventions
testing:
  framework: jest               # jest | mocha | pytest | rspec | go-test | ...
  coverage_threshold: 80        # Minimum coverage percentage
  test_location: colocated      # colocated | separate (__tests__/) | mirror (test/)

# Logging conventions
logging:
  library: pino                 # pino | winston | slf4j | logging | slog | ...
  level: info                   # Default log level
  format: json                  # json | text
  no_secrets: true              # Enforce no secrets in logs

# Observability
observability:
  metrics: true                 # Add metrics to critical paths
  tracing: true                 # Add tracing spans
  library: opentelemetry        # opentelemetry | datadog | ...

# Guardrails
guardrails:
  max_diff_lines: 400           # Advisory max lines changed per phase
  require_plan_lock: true       # Require locked plan before implementation
  require_tests: true           # Require tests for all changes
  block_generated_files: true   # Block edits to generated files

# Issue workflow
issues:
  template: docs/LOCAL_ISSUE_TEMPLATE.md
  location: local_issues/
  require_dor: true             # Enforce Definition of Ready
  require_dod: true             # Enforce Definition of Done

Steps

When Creating Preferences

1. •Ask the user about their preferred language, test framework, logging library, and coding style.
2. •Create .github/copilot-preferences.yml with their choices.
3. •Print a summary of the configured preferences.

When Resolving Preferences (for other skills)

1. •Check each location in the resolution order above.
2. •Merge preferences, with higher-priority sources winning conflicts.
3. •Return the resolved Profile as a structured object.
4. •If no preferences files exist, use built-in defaults:
   • •max_diff_lines: 400
   • •require_plan_lock: true
   • •require_tests: true
   • •block_generated_files: true
   • •no_secrets: true

When Displaying Current Preferences

1. •Resolve all preference sources.
2. •Print the merged result showing which source each value came from.
3. •Highlight any conflicts between levels.

Guardrails

• •Do not call CLIs or the network.
• •Do not override explicit user choices with defaults.
• •If a preference file has syntax errors, report them and fall back to defaults for that source.