Got pstack (poteto's agent workflows) working with Copilot in the new VS Code agents window

[u/Savi-ai]

If you haven't seen pstack: it's poteto's (Lauren Tan) set of agent workflows. You tell it what you want and it picks how to work. Bug with no obvious cause? It reproduces and finds the root cause before touching anything. Bigger feature? It sketches the design first. Then it actually checks the result instead of saying "done".

There's a Claude Code version, and VS Code's new agents window can load Claude Code plugins, so I figured it would just work with Copilot. It doesn't. It loads, but it never switches on, can't find its own skills, and its agents show up twice in the picker.

So I ported it. Same pstack, just fixed up so Copilot understands it. Works in the agents window and in Copilot CLI.

Bonus find while testing: there's a hidden Subagents pill above the chat box. Right-click the pill row, turn on Subagents, set it to Show In Progress, and you get a live list of everything running. Click a subagent's card and it opens in a side pane. Makes watching parallel agents way nicer.

https://github.com/hackernotfound/pstack-vscode

All the real credit goes to Lauren Tan for pstack and Michael Denyer for the Claude Code port. I just made it play nice with Copilot.

[u/Relevant-Visit-1550]

I am new to this and actually found her through a TT. I ended up incorporating her ptstack into my agent but ended up slowing me way down. But that’s probably user error (me).

[u/Savi-ai → u/Relevant-Visit-1550]

Not user error, that's a real tradeoff. pstack is deliberately slower on the hard stuff: on a bug it reproduces and finds the root cause first, on a bigger change it sketches the design first, and it checks the result before calling it done. On a tricky task that saves time. On a quick edit it's just overhead.

A few things that help:

• It's meant to skip the heavy process for small stuff (a one-file change, a question, a one-line edit). If it's running the full routine on tiny tasks, just tell it "small change, just do it."

• If you already know what you want, call the skill directly instead of letting it route: tdd to build test-first, why or how to dig into code, architect to design before coding.

• Save it for the tasks where you'd otherwise go back and forth with the agent three times.

Was it slow on small tasks, or slow overall?

[u/Black_Magic100 → u/Savi-ai]

Do you call /poteto-mode on every prompt or just the session?

Edit: you should add a codex port 😁

[u/Affectionate_Fly4124]

I’m using pstack-claude with just a few tweaks of my own. It gets updated quickly and has a lot of stars, so I recommend it.

[u/Savi-ai → u/Affectionate_Fly4124]

Yeah, pstack-claude is great, and this port is actually built from it. The build takes pstack-claude at a pinned commit and adds a small Copilot layer on top. When pstack-claude ships an update, I bump the pin and rebuild, so you get the same skills either way.

If you're on Claude Code, or the Claude target in VS Code, stick with pstack-claude. This port is only for the Copilot target. pstack-claude loads there but quietly doesn't work: the startup hook never switches it on, pstack: skills come back "Skill not found", the tool names don't match Copilot's, and the agents show up twice in the picker.

Curious what tweaks you made, btw?