github / github/copilot-cli

Emit session configuration event with loaded tools, instructions, and extensions at startup

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#3,326 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
area:configuration area:non-interactive
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Shell
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Description

## Describe the feature or problem you'd like to solve

The JSONL event stream lacks visibility into what the agent loads at startup — tools, instruction files, MCP connections, extensions, and skills are all resolved before the first turn but never reported in telemetry.

## Proposed solution

A new event (e.g. `session.config_loaded`) emitted once after initialisation, reporting what was loaded. This would allow anyone building observability or cost-analysis tooling on top of the event stream to answer questions that are currently impossible to answer:

- How many tool definitions are injected into the system prompt per turn, and what is their token cost?
- Which instruction files from `.github/instructions/` matched the current context, and what is their combined size?
- What fraction of loaded tools are actually invoked during a session?
- Which MCP servers connected and how many tools did each register?

Without this data, users optimising token budgets have no way to measure or reduce the overhead from tool/instruction loading — the largest controllable component of per-turn token consumption.

A suggested payload structure:

```jsonc
{
"type": "session.config_loaded",
"data": {
"tools": [
{ "name": "bash", "source": "builtin" },
{ "name": "github-list_issues", "source": "mcp:github" }
],
"toolCount": 84,
"instructions": [
{ "path": ".github/instructions/dev.instructions.md", "sizeBytes": 2048, "matchedPattern": "apps/**" }
],
"instructionCount": 2,
"instructionTotalBytes": 4096,
"extensions": [
{ "name": "my-extension", "location": "project" }
],
"extensionCount": 1,
"skills": [
{ "name": "docs-build", "source": "project" }
],
"skillCount": 5
}
}
```

Even a minimal version — just `toolCount` and `instructionCount` as integers on the existing `session.start` event — would be a meaningful improvement.

## Additional context

- The `tool.execution_start` event records each tool invocation (name + arguments) but not the catalogue of available tools, so "tools used" can be counted but "tools available" cannot.
- The `skill.invoked` event partially covers skills but does not address tools, instructions, or extensions.
- Organisations managing token budgets across multiple teams and repositories currently have no mechanism to identify which configurations cause excessive token consumption. This event would close that gap.
- This is a read-only telemetry addition — no changes to agent behaviour, just improved observability.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start at startup initialization and the existing session.start JSONL event, then compare its shape with tool.execution_start and skill.invoked. Decide whether the first version extends session.start with toolCount and instructionCount or adds session.config_loaded, and verify it emits once after initialization with the loaded configuration while remaining read-only.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
shell
Domain
observability
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

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