Staring at your backlog can feel overwhelming. At Microsoft Build, we announced something that addresses this directly: Now you can assign GitHub issues directly to an AI agent.

Meet your new asynchronous teammate 🏅

If you've used GitHub Copilot's agent mode, you know the power of having an AI collaborator. However, GitHub Copilot coding agent operates asynchronously. Just assign issues directly to @copilot like any team member, and it will:

• Spin up its own secure workspace in GitHub Actions
• Write, test, and iterate on production code
• Open pull requests with thoughtful commit history
• Respond to your pull request feedback automatically

Watch for the 👀 emoji reaction to know it’s working. The agent excels at low-to-medium complexity tasks in well-tested codebases, but you can experiment across projects.

You can also invoke it in Visual Studio Code with prompts like:

While agent mode excels at real-time collaboration, the coding agent handles tasks you can delegate and review later. From bug fixes to test coverage, docs updates, and small refactors, coding agent takes on the tedious work and flips the script so you can focus on high-impact projects.

The best part? You can use them together strategically. Prototype with agent mode, polish or implement with coding agent, and troubleshoot locally if needed.

A real-world example 🌎

Here's how this plays out in practice: A contributor once flagged missing docs on our Maintainer Month website, but the issue sat untouched for weeks. I assigned it to @copilot, and coding agent:

• Understood the feedback
• Analyzed the existing docs
• Made improvements with formatting and links
• Opened a clear, thoughtful pull request

The result? A solid update that addressed every point, plus a few extra enhancements. And best of all, I was able to stay focused on other priorities while the agent handled the heavy lifting.

The bigger picture 🔥

AI agents won't replace engineers, but they will replace the routine parts of engineering so you can focus on what matters: building great features, writing better code, and solving real problems.

What will you hand off first? ✨

Get started with Copilot coding agent

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✨ This newsletter was written by Andrea Liliana Griffiths and produced by Gwen Davis. ✨

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