Summary

  • 5 minutes

The GitHub Copilot coding agent lets you hand off well-scoped, low- to medium-complexity changes-bug fixes, small features, refactors, tests, documentation-while preserving your GitHub-native workflow. You assign the task; the agent works in a secure, firewalled Actions environment, opens a draft PR, and you review, request changes with @copilot, and approve.

You control security, governance, and spend: branch protections, approval gates, Actions minutes, and PRUs (one premium request per model request). You can customize the build environment, leverage larger runners, enable LFS, and extend capabilities via MCP-all with clear logs and traceability. You're ready to pilot the coding agent in your organization: enable it on a repo, assign a small issue, watch the logs, iterate via PR comments, validate with CI, and measure the time you get back for higher-value work.

Now that you've completed this module, you can:

  • Explain what the Copilot coding agent is, who can use it, and where it runs.
  • Enable the agent at the org or repo level and understand preview terms.
  • Delegate work by assigning issues or asking Copilot to open a pull request.
  • Track progress via PR timelines and live session logs, and iterate with @copilot.
  • Apply the security model and built-in guardrails (branch limits, approvals, firewall).
  • Identify risks and mitigations (permissions, prompt-injection protections, attribution).
  • Recognize workflow and compatibility limits and plan tasks accordingly.
  • Customize the agent's environment with copilot-setup-steps.yml, env vars/secrets, larger runners, and LFS.
  • Extend capabilities with Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers (e.g., GitHub, Playwright).
  • Validate quality with CI, rulesets, and test generation-and use PRUs intentionally.
  • Troubleshoot common issues (availability, approvals, logs, firewall, image limits).

Learn more

Provide feedback

Use this issue form to provide content feedback or suggested changes for this Microsoft Learn module. GitHub maintains this content and a team member will triage the request. Thank you for taking the time to improve our content!