The Copilot coding agent is a cloud-based, asynchronous autonomous agent — you assign it a GitHub issue, and it opens a pull request when it’s done, no IDE required.

Unlike agent mode (which works in your IDE while you watch), the Copilot coding agent works on GitHub’s infrastructure. You assign it an issue, it spins up in GitHub Actions, reads your codebase, makes changes, runs tests, and opens a draft PR. You review the PR when it’s ready.

This is NOT the same as agent mode

⚠️ This is NOT the same as agent mode. Agent mode works in your IDE right now. The Copilot coding agent works in the cloud while you’re away. They share the word “agent” but are entirely separate products. See Agent Mode if you want in-IDE autonomous editing.

ℹ️ Public preview: The Copilot coding agent is currently in public preview. Features and availability may change.

How it works

  1. You assign a GitHub issue to Copilot (or use the “Assign to Copilot” button)
  2. Copilot spins up an agent in GitHub Actions
  3. The agent reads your codebase and plans an approach
  4. It makes changes, runs your CI, and iterates on failures
  5. It opens a draft pull request with a summary of what it did
  6. You review, request changes, or merge

What it can do

  • Work on well-defined, self-contained tasks
  • Read your full codebase for context
  • Run your existing tests and CI pipeline
  • Open a pull request with its work

What it cannot do

⚠️ Know the limits before you assign it a task:

  • It works best on clearly-scoped issues — vague or very large tasks produce worse results
  • It cannot make judgment calls that require business context you haven’t written down
  • It does NOT replace code review — always review its PRs carefully
  • It does NOT have access to your local environment or secrets beyond what’s in GitHub Actions

Third-party agents

The Copilot coding agent isn’t the only agent you can route to from Copilot. Third-party agents — including Anthropic’s Claude coding agent and OpenAI’s Codex agent — can also be accessed from within GitHub Copilot. When you do this, Copilot acts as an orchestrator (Layer 3) routing to these external agents.

ℹ️ These third-party agents are in public preview.

Dive deeper

Related Concepts

📍 Layer 2 — The Agent (cloud-based) · Back to the AICA Onion

What’s next?

  • Copilot Models — understand the models that power every Copilot feature

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