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Pull request overview
This pull request makes three key improvements to the stellar-core development environment and tooling: updates the devcontainer configuration for Ubuntu 24.04 compatibility, restructures the Copilot instructions to emphasize using tools and skills, and introduces eight comprehensive skills for code development, review, testing, and validation workflows.
Changes:
- Updated devcontainer configuration from Ubuntu 20.04 to 24.04 (noble) with modern VSCode customizations and development tool extensions
- Rewrote Copilot instructions to guide agents toward using LSP tools, subagents, and skill-based workflows rather than directly providing coding guidelines
- Added eight new skill documents covering validation, testing, building, code review (high and low level), test addition, build configuration, and skill creation
Reviewed changes
Copilot reviewed 11 out of 11 changed files in this pull request and generated 6 comments.
Show a summary per file
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| .github/copilot-instructions.md | Rewrites instructions to emphasize agent-based workflows and tool usage instead of direct coding guidelines |
| .devcontainer/devcontainer.json | Updates container name to Ubuntu 24.04, modernizes customizations structure, and adds development extensions |
| .devcontainer/Dockerfile | Updates for Ubuntu 24.04 sources, adds user/group handling logic, and installs additional development tools |
| .claude/skills/validating-a-change/SKILL.md | Defines comprehensive validation workflow orchestrating multiple review and testing steps |
| .claude/skills/running-tests/SKILL.md | Provides detailed test execution guidance from smoke tests through sanitizer builds |
| .claude/skills/running-make-to-build/SKILL.md | Documents build system structure and correct usage patterns |
| .claude/skills/low-level-code-review/SKILL.md | Establishes mechanical code review process for localized issues |
| .claude/skills/high-level-code-review/SKILL.md | Defines semantic code review criteria for correctness and design consistency |
| .claude/skills/configuring-the-build/SKILL.md | Documents build configuration options and autotools workflow |
| .claude/skills/adding-tests/SKILL.md | Guides test analysis and creation for various change types |
| .claude/skills/adding-a-new-skill/SKILL.md | Provides meta-framework for creating additional skills |
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leighmcculloch
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Couple of suggestions -- feel free to take it or leave it. These are some things I found to work ok locally. Some of these are more explicit wordings of what you already have. That being said, no rigorous evaluation has been done on any of these instructions, all evidence is purely anecdotal.
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Since there was a lot more feedback than I anticipated on #5111 I've split out the most important step of it for now: fixing the devcontainer to actually work with noble / support our current build. The devcontainer literally doesn't work currently, so this is fairly high value to land asap.
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Sorry, I was testing with this locally and accidentally pushed something here instead of to my fork, should be reverted now. |
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This PR does 2 main things:
I don't think there's much to object to in the skills and I am also not all that certain that copilot will use them as actively as we'd like; on the other hand it roughly seems to work with my local testing and enables some behaviors that I was otherwise telling it over and over / watching it do wrong. so I think it's probably worth starting off with something like this. if we find them making things worse they can always be edited back down / removed.