HVE Core
A Microsoft HVE-maintained GitHub Copilot workflow pack that combines agents, prompts, instructions, and skills for research, planning, implementation, review, and security checks.
Project overview
HVE Core is a GitHub Copilot workflow collection maintained by Microsoft's HVE team. It organizes research, planning, implementation, review, and related engineering work into composable agents, prompts, instructions, and skills, with RPI as its clearest end-to-end workflow. It is intended for teams building repeatable AI-assisted development practices, not as a standalone model, hosted agent platform, or autonomous delivery system.
Core capabilities
End-to-end RPI workflow
RPI agents and prompts organize requirements research, implementation planning, execution, code review, and recovery into composable steps with intermediate artifacts and human checkpoints.
Engineering quality and governance components
The catalog includes coding standards, code review, testing, security, privacy, accessibility, and responsible-AI components that can be selected per task instead of all being enabled at once.
Engineering collaboration workflows
The component catalog covers GitHub, Azure DevOps, GitLab, and Jira scenarios. Connecting to any external system still requires its own credentials and authorization.
Component authoring with HVE Builder
HVE Builder supports creating and adapting agents, prompts, instructions, and skills so teams can derive project-specific components from the repository's patterns.
Installation and usage
Install HVE Core in the target Copilot host, verify that its components appear, and trial one low-risk workflow before wider adoption.
Let an AI Agent install it
Send this prompt to Codex, Claude Code, or another AI agent that can work with your local environment.
Help me install Microsoft HVE Core from https://github.com/microsoft/hve-core. First read README.md, docs/getting-started/install.md, plugin.json, TRANSPARENCY-NOTE.md, SECURITY.md, and the licenses. Confirm whether I am using GitHub Copilot CLI or VS Code. For CLI, use the repository's current commands `copilot plugin marketplace add microsoft/hve-core` and `copilot plugin install hve-core@hve-core`. Explain the plugin configuration and paths that will change before running anything. Then verify that hve-core and an RPI agent or prompt entry are visible. Do not configure external MCP services, telemetry, or third-party integrations automatically. Ask before requesting credentials, expanding network access, overwriting files, or performing external write actions.- GitHub Copilot CLI, or Visual Studio Code with GitHub Copilot Chat
- Access to GitHub
- Permission to change user-level plugin or extension configuration
- A team decision on how to retain .copilot-tracking/ artifacts
copilot plugin marketplace add microsoft/hve-core
copilot plugin install hve-core@hve-core- 1Choose the host and review boundaries
Decide between GitHub Copilot CLI and VS Code Copilot Chat, read the transparency and license notes, and record the existing plugins, extensions, and project-file state.
- 2Install through the documented path
Copilot CLI users run `copilot plugin marketplace add microsoft/hve-core` followed by `copilot plugin install hve-core@hve-core`. VS Code users follow the guide for extension `ise-hve-essentials.hve-core`.
- 3Confirm component discovery
Check that hve-core appears in the plugin list. In VS Code, type `@` to find the RPI Agent and `/` to find RPI entries. If they are absent, check the host version and installation logs first.
- 4Run a low-risk trial
Use a small repository with no sensitive data and run only a research or planning step. Review outputs, .copilot-tracking/ artifacts, and permissions before moving to implementation or external services.
Confirm that hve-core appears in Copilot CLI, or type `@` in VS Code Copilot Chat to find the RPI Agent and `/` to find RPI entry points. Start with a non-sensitive sample task and review every resource it will read, write, or call.
- Validate host compatibility with one low-risk component before loading the broader collection.
- Treat .copilot-tracking/ version-control policy as a team decision.
- Review external platforms and optional services as separate security and data boundaries.
Use cases
Create an RPI delivery trail for a complex change
Research the repository and constraints, produce a reviewable plan, implement in stages, and review the result while preserving the reasoning artifacts.
Standardize code review and security checks
Select the relevant coding-standard, security, privacy, and accessibility components, map them to existing team gates, and preserve human approval.
Build project-specific Copilot components
Use HVE Builder and existing components as patterns for agents, prompts, instructions, or skills that match the team's stack, permissions, and delivery process.
Assessment
HVE Core's main value is turning a mature engineering approach into a browsable, selectable set of Copilot components, with strong coverage of RPI, code quality, and governance. The tradeoff is a large, fast-moving, opinionated collection that teams must curate and validate against their host. Its transparency note clearly separates the model host, telemetry, host memory, and third-party service boundaries, but that does not replace a review of each external integration. No installation or functional testing was performed for this page.
Why it may be useful
- Officially maintained with a broad component catalog and documentation
- RPI covers research, planning, implementation, review, and recovery patterns
- Clear disclosure of default telemetry, host memory, and third-party service boundaries
- MIT primary license, security-reporting channel, and stable release history
What to know first
- The repository explicitly evolves quickly and does not promise platform stability
- The large catalog must be curated; loading everything can add context and process overhead
- External actions and decision-shaping outputs require human oversight
- Some Skills use CC BY-SA 4.0 and require attention to their attribution metadata
README
HVE Core
Overview
A Microsoft HVE-maintained GitHub Copilot workflow pack that combines agents, prompts, instructions, and skills for research, planning, implementation, review, and security checks. A collection of HVE components for GitHub Copilot, including instructions, prompts, agents, and skills.
Getting started
- Install HVE Core in the target Copilot host, verify that its components appear, and trial one low-risk workflow before wider adoption.
- HVE Core organizes engineering knowledge as agents, prompts, instructions, and skills; the current main manifest declares 60, 48, 60, and 78 of those components respectively.
- The RPI workflow covers research, planning, implementation, and review. The repository also includes HVE Builder, coding standards, security, planning, reporting, and collaboration-platform components.
- Confirm that hve-core appears in Copilot CLI, or type `@` in VS Code Copilot Chat to find the RPI Agent and `/` to find RPI entry points. Start with a non-sensitive sample task and review every resource it will read, write, or call.
Configuration
copilot plugin marketplace add microsoft/hve-core
copilot plugin install hve-core@hve-core