Can I treat *.chatmode.md as *.agent.md?

[doggy8088]

Select Topic Area

Question

Copilot Feature Area

Copilot Coding Agent

Body

Honestly, I can't really distinguish between *.chatmode.md and *.agent.md. They seem almost identical. I can simply add a name property to the frontmatter in a *.chatmode.md file, then it's *.agent.md now. Can I correct?

I can't find the Mode option under the gear icon in the GitHub Copilot Chat pane. I'm curious if GitHub plans to rename Chat Mode to Agent, right?

[Danindu05]

Yes, you can.
*.chatmode.md and *.agent.md are functionally very similar — both define custom Copilot chat behaviors. The main difference is that .agent.md is the newer format introduced for Copilot Agents, which adds support for extra metadata and integrates with the Agents menu in VS Code.

If you rename your .chatmode.md file to .agent.md, it will still work as expected. Just keep in mind that .agent.md is the preferred and more future-proof format going forward, as GitHub seems to be transitioning from “Chat Mode” to “Agents.”

In short: yes, you can treat them as equivalent for now — .agent.md is simply the updated version of .chatmode.md.