At Microsoft’s Construct developer convention, GitHub introduced the rollout of a brand new AI coding agent constructed instantly into GitHub Copilot. This upgraded assistant can now deal with growth duties like fixing bugs, writing options, refactoring code, and bettering documentation.
Builders can assign points to Copilot by means of GitHub.com, GitHub Cell, or the GitHub command-line interface, identical to assigning them to a human. The agent reacts with a 👀 emoji and kicks off its work.
Behind the scenes, it boots up a digital machine, clones your repo, configures its surroundings, and begins studying your codebase. It makes use of retrieval augmented era (RAG) and GitHub code search to know what’s occurring and what it must do.
Constructed-in safety, and human oversight required
Regardless of all its energy, the Copilot agent doesn’t act with out checks. Each change it makes goes right into a separate department and draft pull request; it gained’t push code reside with out human overview and may’t approve its personal work.
“The agent can solely push to branches it created, preserving your default department and those your group created protected and safe,” Thomas Dohmke, chief govt officer of GitHub, wrote in a weblog submit.
You’ll see its reasoning by means of session logs, which hint each resolution it makes. Builders may also go away feedback on pull requests, and Copilot will reply by modifying the code accordingly.
GitHub’s agent is tightly built-in with GitHub Actions, the corporate’s CI/CD platform that runs greater than 40 million day by day jobs. Which means the agent works inside your present workflow, not exterior of it.
And with the Mannequin Context Protocol (MCP), it could actually use exterior knowledge sources and observe customized repository directions, serving to it keep aligned along with your group’s coding fashion and intent.
Availability and value
The agent is presently in preview and solely accessible to customers of Copilot Professional+ and Copilot Enterprise.
To activate it, you’ll have to allow it in your repository settings. For Enterprise customers, admins should activate the coverage. Beginning June 4, 2025, utilizing the coding agent will value one premium request per mannequin name.
GitHub says the agent is on the market on GitHub’s web site, cellular app, CLI, and extra IDEs, together with Xcode, Eclipse, JetBrains, and Visible Studio.
GitHub ranges up within the AI coding race
With the debut of its AI agent, GitHub is stepping right into a extra aggressive house. Different tech giants have additionally entered the AI coding agent race: Google unveiled Jules final 12 months, and OpenAI lately showcased its Codex agent.
Nonetheless, GitHub’s benefit lies in its seamless integration into the on a regular basis developer workflow. And with over 15 million Copilot customers and counting, the corporate hopes to redefine what it means to work with AI in software program growth.