plainpm
Copilot instructions0 starsChanged 4 months agoMITView on GitHub
You are working inside a markdown-based project management system called plainpm. All data lives in plain text markdown files with YAML front matter inside the data/ subdirectory. Before doing anything, read these files to understand the system: These two files are the single source of truth. Follow them exactly. All user data lives in data/ (projects, team, meetings, reports). This directory is gitignored by default. If it doesn't exist, commands that write data will offer to create it. Command prompts…
Where files are headingNew Copilot instructions files have more rules about branches and pull requests, and fewer about code style.
Of the Copilot instructions files we read, the 2,343 first seen in the last six months, against the older ones: the kind of rule that gained most share, and the kind that lost most. About files like this in general, not this one, and an estimate, since a kind is a pattern in the words.
In this repository10 other files it gives its agents.
- AGENTS.mdAGENTS.md
- CLAUDE.mdCLAUDE.md
- .cursor/rules/plainpm.mdcCursor rule
- archiveSkill
- doneSkill
- new-noteSkill
- new-taskSkill
- process-meetingSkill
- statusSkill
- updateSkill
The file
We split this copilot-instructions.md into the rules it gives an agent
5 rules. About 0 are common, 2 are distinctive, and 3 are very specific to this project.
≈0
Common · estimate
Many files like this have a rule of this kind.
≈2
Distinctive · estimate
This author's own choices. Worth a look.
3
Very specific
Tied to their project's names, files or tools. Probably skip.
- Common
- Distinctive
- Very specific
- Distinctive: line 7
Before doing anything, read these files to understand the system:
- Very specific: line 16
All user data lives in data/ (projects, team, meetings, reports).
- Very specific: line 40
All tasks, meeting notes, and reports go in year subfolders (e.g., tasks/2026/) inside data/
- Distinctive: line 44
Only create task files for team members (including yourself) — external attendees' action items stay in meeting notes only
- Very specific: line 47
Every dashboard run saves a snapshot to data/reports/<type>/YYYY/
≈ “Common” is an estimate: at least 1 in 5 of the 3,779 Copilot instructions files we read have a rule of the same kind, not the same words. “Very specific” is our guess from the words: it names a file, a command, a setting or the project itself.
Files
plainpm — GitHub Copilot Instructions
You are working inside a markdown-based project management system called plainpm. All data lives in plain text markdown files with YAML front matter inside the data/ subdirectory.
Required reading
Before doing anything, read these files to understand the system:
CLAUDE.md— All conventions: team roster, statuses, priorities, task IDs, file locations, year-based organization, meeting processing rules, dashboard scripts.INSTRUCTIONS.md— Complete usage guide with examples for every operation.
These two files are the single source of truth. Follow them exactly.
Data directory
All user data lives in data/ (projects, team, meetings, reports). This directory is gitignored by default. If it doesn't exist, commands that write data will offer to create it.
Available commands
Command prompts are in prompts/commands/. When the user asks to run a command, read the corresponding file and follow its instructions:
| User request | Prompt file |
| "Run today dashboard" or "today" | prompts/commands/today.md |
| "Run weekly dashboard" or "this week" | prompts/commands/this_week.md |
| "Show team workload" or "my team" | prompts/commands/my_team.md |
| "Weekly report" | prompts/commands/weekly_report.md |
| "Owner report" or "projects/streams owned by X" | prompts/commands/owner_report.md |
| "Create a new task" + description | prompts/commands/new_task.md |
| "Create a note" + area/project/stream | prompts/commands/new_note.md |
| "Process meeting" + file path | prompts/commands/process_meeting.md |
| "Project status" + optional project | prompts/commands/status.md |
| "Done" + task ID(s) | prompts/commands/done.md |
| "Update" + natural language changes | prompts/commands/update.md |
| "Meeting agenda" or "agenda" + optional project | prompts/commands/agenda.md |
| "Archive" + optional project/days | prompts/commands/archive.md |
Key rules
- All tasks, meeting notes, and reports go in year subfolders (e.g.,
tasks/2026/) insidedata/ - Task IDs auto-increment across all years — scan all year folders to find the highest
- Meeting notes favor completeness over brevity — never aggressively summarize
- Meeting processing also proposes cross-reference updates to existing projects, streams, and tasks discussed — showing proposed summaries alongside existing updates and asking the user to approve, edit, replace, or skip each one before writing
- Only create task files for team members (including yourself) — external attendees' action items stay in meeting notes only
- plainpm works in solo mode (one team member) or team mode (multiple) — detect by counting
data/team/*.mdfiles - Dashboards are generated by
python scripts/dashboard.py <command>— always use the script, never manually build dashboard output - Every dashboard run saves a snapshot to
data/reports/<type>/YYYY/
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Now do this for your own.
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