Set up GitHub Copilot for Windows development

This guide walks you through setting up GitHub Copilot with the tools that make it genuinely useful for Windows development: the WinUI agent plugin that gives Copilot accurate Windows App SDK context, and the Microsoft Learn MCP Server that gives Copilot live access to official Windows documentation.

Tip

Building a new app with VS Code and the winapp CLI? The Quickstart is a faster path — it covers the same tools in a single end-to-end flow. Come back here if you're configuring GitHub Copilot for an existing Visual Studio workflow.

Note

You can build WinUI 3 apps using either Visual Studio or VS Code with the winapp CLI — use whichever you're most comfortable with. Steps below are marked accordingly where the experience differs.

Prerequisites

• A GitHub Copilot subscription (a free tier is available)
• Visual Studio Code or Visual Studio 2026
• Node.js 18 or later (required for the Copilot plugin install command)

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Step 1: Install GitHub Copilot in your IDE

Visual Studio (WinUI 3)

GitHub Copilot is built into Visual Studio 2026. This tab covers setup for Visual Studio.

1. Open Visual Studio and go to Extensions > Manage Extensions.
2. Search for GitHub Copilot and install it, or verify it's already installed.
3. Sign in via Tools > Options > GitHub > Accounts.

For detailed setup, see Tutorial: Build a Windows app with GitHub Copilot.

VS Code (Electron, Flutter, .NET, Rust)

1. Open VS Code and go to the Extensions view (Ctrl+Shift+X).
2. Search for GitHub Copilot and install the extension.
3. Sign in with your GitHub account when prompted.
4. To enable agent mode (required for multi-step tasks), open Settings (Ctrl+,), search for chat.agent.enabled, and toggle it on.

For detailed setup, see GitHub Copilot in VS Code.

Step 2: Install the WinUI agent plugin

The WinUI agent plugin from the Awesome Copilot community repository teaches Copilot the right Windows App SDK patterns — preventing common mistakes like using deprecated UWP APIs.

gh copilot plugin install winui@awesome-copilot

This installs the plugin user-globally to ~\.copilot\installed-plugins\. Verify with gh copilot plugin list.

Tip

You can also browse and install Copilot plugins directly from VS Code using the Awesome Copilot extension.

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Step 3: Add the Microsoft Learn MCP Server

The Microsoft Learn MCP Server gives Copilot live access to official Microsoft documentation — so it can look up current API references and code samples as it helps you code.

VS Code (Electron, Flutter, .NET, Rust)

Add the following to your VS Code settings.json (open with Ctrl+Shift+P > Open User Settings (JSON)):

{
  "mcp": {
    "servers": {
      "microsoft-learn": {
        "type": "http",
        "url": "https://learn.microsoft.com/api/mcp"
      }
    }
  }
}

Or, to add it per-project, create .vscode/mcp.json in your project root:

{
  "servers": {
    "microsoft-learn": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://learn.microsoft.com/api/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Visual Studio

1. Go to Tools > Options > GitHub > Copilot > MCP Servers.
2. Add a new server with the URL: https://learn.microsoft.com/api/mcp

Step 4: Verify your setup

Open Copilot Chat and try these prompts to confirm everything is working:

Test the WinUI 3 plugin:

"Add a confirmation dialog to my WinUI 3 app that asks before deleting an item."

Copilot should respond with a ContentDialog implementation including the required XamlRoot setup — the plugin's Windows App SDK context guides it to the right modern API without you needing to specify what to avoid.

Test the Learn MCP Server:

"Look up the latest Windows App SDK release notes and tell me what's new."

Copilot should fetch the current release notes from Microsoft Learn and summarize them.

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Optional: Add more Windows MCP servers

Extend Copilot's context further with additional Windows-specific MCP servers:

MCP Server	What it gives Copilot	URL / setup
Azure DevOps	Access work items, PRs, and builds	Azure DevOps MCP Server

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Next steps

Tutorial: Build a Windows app with GitHub Copilot

• Modernize or port a Windows app with Copilot
• Agentic tools overview — full details on all tools