boost-backend

Official backend boost for GitHub Copilot. Standalone: agents, skills, prompts and instructions that Copilot discovers automatically.

Overview

boost-backend ships reusable backend reasoning assets, including:

• architecture guidance
• API design patterns
• refactoring playbooks
• performance heuristics
• security review criteria
• testing standards
• data access guidance
• backend DevOps recommendations

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20 or later
• npm 10 or later

Quick Start

This boost is self-contained: it does not need any runtime, plugin or MCP server. One command copies its assets to the places where GitHub Copilot / VS Code discover them automatically.

# From the root of YOUR project
npx github:Sertxito/boost_backend
# or, once published on npm
npx boost-backend

| Asset | Installed into | |---|---| | Agents | .github/agents/*.agent.md | | Skills | .github/skills/<name>/SKILL.md and .agents/skills/<name>/SKILL.md | | Prompts | .github/prompts/*.prompt.md | | Instructions | .github/instructions/*.instructions.md | | Global instructions | .github/copilot-instructions.md (only if the project has none) |

Options: --target <dir>, --force (overwrite), --dry-run, --no-agents-dir (skip .agents/skills), --check (verify install), --uninstall. Existing files are never overwritten without --force, so several boosts can coexist in the same project.

Verify: run npx boost-backend --check, reload VS Code (Developer: Reload Window), then type @ in Copilot Chat (agents), / (prompts) and open the Configure Tools / Skills picker.

Package Layout

agents/       -> who acts
specs/        -> universal truths and non-negotiable guidance
skills/       -> operational procedures that can evolve
prompts/      -> runtime prompt composition per capability
instructions/ -> domain instructions reused by agents and skills
evals/        -> evaluation criteria and test cases
examples/     -> examples of high-quality outputs
docs/         -> package documentation and contribution guides

Mental Model

Agent   = who I am
Spec    = what I know
Skill   = how I work
Prompt  = how I compose
Eval    = how I measure quality
Example = what good looks like

Local Customization

Installed files are plain files in your project (.github/). Edit them freely; re-run with --force to restore the originals.

Quality Checks (Maintainers)

Run all repository checks before publishing:

npm run quality

This runs structure validation, references validation, eval checks, artifact alignment checks, and placeholder checks.

Naming and collisions

Installed assets are prefixed with backend- (e.g. .github/agents/backend-<name>.agent.md, .github/skills/backend-<name>/) so several boosts can live in the same project, and internal references are rewritten to match.

• Nothing that already exists in the target is overwritten: each ignored file is reported with a [WARN] ... already existed ... IGNORED message. Use --force to overwrite.
• An existing .github/copilot-instructions.md is kept; the boost's global guidance is installed as backend-global.instructions.md instead.
• Re-running the installer is safe; --check and --uninstall work from the manifest.