GitHub Copilot Coding Agent: First Impressions

Have you ever stared at a mountain of bug tickets, documentation chores, and those “someday” refactors, wishing you could just hand them off to someone else? I have.

Recently at Microsoft Build, GitHub announced Coding Agent and it caught my attention for all the right reasons! 

“Our newest coding agent levels up GitHub Copilot from a pair programmer to peer – working like a full-fledged member of your team.” (C) GitHub 

What Exactly Is the Copilot Coding Agent?

Let’s break it down. Imagine you could assign a coding task – say, “fix this annoying bug” or “update the docs” – to an AI teammate inside GitHub. The Copilot Coding Agent spins up a secure environment, clones your repo, analyses the code, edits files, builds, tests, and even lints before opening a draft pull request. It listens to your team’s coding guidelines, absorbs context from issues and previous PR comments, and responds to feedback – all without you having to babysit it or even breaking your development flow!

It’s not just another autocomplete tool. This agent works asynchronously, quietly chipping away at your to-do list while you focus on the work that actually gets your heart racing – like designing new features or solving gnarly architectural puzzles

How does it feel in practice?

In short, great! I have assigned numerous bug fixes, improvements & small feature requests to Copilot Coding Agent using GitHub issues. Every issue I assign to the coding agent, I see the eyes emoji pop up, and a draft pull request appears within minutes to the associated repo. Watching the agent tick off its plan in real time felt a bit like peeking over a teammate’s shoulder – except this teammate never gets distracted by Slack.

Here’s What Happens When You Assign a Task:

• Coding Agent reviews the issue & creates a plan of action
• Spins up a secure, isolated dev environment
• Clones your repo and understands the code (yes, really)
• Makes the change & tests
• Drafts a pull request—with meaningful commit messages
• Assigns reviewers and even replies to PR comments if needed

The PR wasn’t just a code dump. It included a summary of what was changed and why (as shown below), with passing tests and a clear audit log. I left a comment asking for a tweak, and the agent beautifully updated the PR. All the while, I was focused on another piece of the project.

A quick demo of GitHub Copilot Coding Agent in action

With my overall usage so far, a few thoughts jumped out:

• Assigning tasks is effortless: It’s as simple as tagging a teammate in an issue – no hoops to jump through, no extra steps
• Every job runs in its own secure, isolated cloud sandbox: That means your code and data stay protected, and you don’t have to worry about accidental cross-contamination between projects
• Context awareness: The agent doesn’t just look at your code; it actually reads through pull request comments, issue descriptions, and even those little notes tucked away in your repo
• MCP integration is available: This means it fits right into internal workflows, helping things run smoothly behind the scenes
• Feedback isn’t ignored. When you leave comments on a pull request, the agent loops back, revises its work, and resubmits – just like a diligent dev
• Garbage in, garbage out. The clearer and more detailed your issue descriptions, the better the results. I learned pretty quickly that a well-written ticket makes all the difference

Why does it matter now?

If you’ve been following trends, you know AI is everywhere – sometimes usefully, sometimes less so. But GitHub’s new coding agent mode feels different. It’s not about replacing developers; it’s about letting us reclaim our flow. Imagine delegating low-risk, high-effort tasks – bug fixes, documentation improvements, repetitive refactors – to a trusted agent.  Instead of bottlenecking progress with “I’ll get to it later,” you let Copilot Agent handle it and focus your time on higher priority problems. 

The Bigger Shift: Async Development with AI

This fits perfectly into the async dev culture we’ve been slowly building toward. You can assign a task during standup, walk into a design review, deal with production issues, and come back to a PR ready to review – all without interrupting your momentum.

Final Thoughts: You are still charge!

Copilot Coding Agent isn’t some black box pushing mystery changes. It’s part of your team, but you’re the one in control:

You assign the issue.
You review the code.
You decide what ships.

“We keep you at the centre of this orchestra, conducting agents and approving recommendations, so you can get back to building epic stuff.” (C) GitHub 

I will certainly be blogging more on this topic in the near future! Do let me know if you have tried it out, leave comments below or reach out on socials – i’d be keen to hear how you are using it!