Enforce ordered lists for procedural steps only in instructions/agents#52859
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Enforce ordered lists for procedural steps only in instructions/agents#52859
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…isabled by default Agent-Logs-Url: https://github.com/dotnet/docs/sessions/2cf0c42e-e0f1-48d8-aff7-196f9738cc53 Co-authored-by: gewarren <24882762+gewarren@users.noreply.github.com>
Agent-Logs-Url: https://github.com/dotnet/docs/sessions/cf27aee1-b5b4-4127-b243-417527790fb2 Co-authored-by: gewarren <24882762+gewarren@users.noreply.github.com>
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[WIP] [WIP] Update documentation for ordered lists as per review feedback on PR #52853
Enforce ordered lists for procedural steps only in instructions/agents
Apr 3, 2026
gewarren
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copilot/disable-aia-certificate-downloads
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gewarren
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Apr 3, 2026
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Pull request overview
This PR tightens the Markdown writing-style guidance to restrict ordered lists to true step-by-step procedures, and updates the internal Copilot instructions to follow that rule for non-procedural “reference rules” content.
Changes:
- Added a mandatory writing-style rule: use ordered lists only for sequential procedural steps (bullets for everything else).
- Converted the API doc ID encoding “rules” in Copilot instructions from a numbered list to bullet points.
Reviewed changes
Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated no comments.
| File | Description |
|---|---|
.github/instructions/Markdown.WritingStyle.instructions.md |
Adds an explicit rule clarifying when ordered vs. unordered lists must be used. |
.github/copilot-instructions.md |
Reformats encoding guidance from ordered to unordered list to align with the clarified rule. |
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Ordered lists (1, 2, 3…) were not explicitly restricted to procedural steps in the writing style instructions, and
copilot-instructions.mdused a numbered list for encoding rules—non-procedural content.Changes
.github/instructions/Markdown.WritingStyle.instructions.md: Added explicit MANDATORY rule — ordered lists are for sequential procedural steps only; unordered lists for everything else..github/copilot-instructions.md: Converted the API doc ID encoding rules from an ordered list to bullets (they're reference rules, not steps).The
docseditor.agent.mdalready had this rule correctly; no change needed there.Internal previews