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AI & Agents

Copilot CLI

Set up Doc Detective agent tools with Copilot CLI to test your documentation using natural language.

Prerequisites

Installation

From any project directory, run:

npx doc-detective install-agents --agent copilot

The command invokes the native Copilot CLI plugin management to add the doc-detective/agent-tools marketplace and install the doc-detective plugin. Re-run at any time to update to the latest version. The command is idempotent and prints “already up to date” when nothing has changed.

Useful flags:

  • --yes: non-interactive; skips all prompts.
  • --force: reinstall even if already up to date.
  • --dry-run: print planned actions without executing them.

Copilot CLI installs plugins user-globally, so the --scope flag has no effect for this agent. If you pass --scope project, doc-detective warns and installs globally.

If the copilot binary isn’t on your PATH, install it first with npm install -g @github/copilot (or see the Copilot CLI install docs). Also run copilot login to authenticate.

Fallback installation

If npx doc-detective install-agents isn’t an option, install via the slash commands built into Copilot CLI.

  1. Open Copilot CLI:

    copilot

  2. Install the Doc Detective plugin:

    /plugin marketplace add doc-detective/agent-tools
    /plugin install doc-detective@doc-detective

Bootstrap a project

Set up Doc Detective in your repository using a slash command:

/doc-detective-init

Or describe what you want in plain language:

Set up Doc Detective in this project. Scan for documentation files, create a config, and generate tests for any procedures you find.

The bootstrapping process:

  1. Detects documentation files (.md, .mdx, .adoc, .rst, .html, .dita)
  2. Generates a .doc-detective.json configuration file
  3. Creates test specifications for procedures with step-by-step instructions
  4. Runs the tests and fixes failures

Generate tests for existing pages

Convert a documentation file into a test specification using a slash command:

/doc-detective-generate docs/getting-started.md

Or ask in plain language:

Generate Doc Detective tests for the getting started guide. Save the output to a JSON file in the tests folder.

You can also ask for more specific behavior:

Create tests for docs/new-feature.md and merge them with the existing test spec in tests/existing-spec.json.