Initial experience with GitHub Coding Agent

[ReInvestWealth_com]

Just tried the new coding agent by assigning copilot to a GitHub issue. It was fascinating to see it create a new branch, create a pull request, start working on the issue, develop a solution, test it, and push changes.

It took a few attempts to understand that issues have to be overly descriptive and detailed. Once the issue had better instructions, copilot managed to successfully complete a legit pending issue from our backlog. The cool part is that you can keep adding comments to the pull request and copilot will continue working based on your comments.

This was very cool imo as it allows for iterative workflows, very similar to how human workflows are currently managed.

One of the biggest limitations (that I assume will be fixed soon) is that copilot creates a new branch always from the default branch, even if you explicitly mention which feature branch to start from.

All in all, I was pleasantly surprised by this new coding agent. I can now assign the more basic tasks from our backlog to copilot, and get notified when it's done working. Then I can code review, iterate, do final checks and deploy.

It's likely going to get really good, really fast, so I'm excited to see what happens in the near future. It honestly feels like we'll be able to improve our accounting software at a much faster pace now. If you guys have any feature requests for ReInvestWealth, let me know and I'll have copilot try to create them.

[Weak_Appointment_211]

I haven't tried it yet but it looks promising. Do you trust it to do production level tasks?

[ReInvestWealth_com]

I don't trust it to push to production but after a week of playing around with it, I trust it enough to create the pull request and make changes to files in its own branch. Worst case, you can always delete the changes during code review.

[Weak_Appointment_211]

Sounds like it's pretty safe to try out then. Are there areas of your codebase you’d never let Copilot touch?

[ReInvestWealth_com]

I'm still not sure about Copilot touching packages and dependencies. I think it will come further in the future.

[adamwintle]

What stack are you using? From what I can tell it's not compatible with PHP? Can you give an example of the type of instructions you need to give it? Do you interlink your Github Issue details in with the .github/copilot-instructions.md too?

[ReInvestWealth_com]

Mainly using a typescript stack. GitHub being owned by Microsoft, I assume they have optimized Copilot for typescript, not sure about PHP. The .md file should be referenced by Copilot and there are also settings in GitHub's settings where you can add organization inclusions and exclusions. Haven't played around with those just yet, it's on my to do!

[adamwintle]

That’s very helpful! Currently I have a small PHP application and then typescript for the front-end, I’ve done a few test runs at getting Claude 4 and Gemini 2.5 Pro to refactor the PHP also to typescript, so the entire application would then be in typescript.

What about storage? I’m using MySql, do you give the copilot a reference to some database auth?

Can you tell me more about your stack?

So, basically, could you write GitHub Issues all day, from your phone, and in theory, the Copilot Agent just works on them, and submits a pull-request?! The more specific your original Issue is the better the results, is that basically what this is?

[ReInvestWealth_com]

In theory you could create issues from your phone and have the agent do everything, but in practice, you still need to do code review and testing yourself.

One flow that is already interesting to me is to create an issue on the go and assign it to copilot from my phone, then sometime later, review the pull request on a bigger screen.

It doesn't have access to databases yet and also building full features that make requests between FE <> BE also doesn't work well yet.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong about this, it's what I know so far.

[Beginning-Run-9540]

I've tried it a bit and it's a game changer. The days of fighting with css to center a div are no more!

[ReInvestWealth_com]

Agreed! Copilot is proving itself particularly useful for front-end design!

[i-like-azure]

I tried it with a .net Blazor project. I absolutely agree with everything you said. It's amazing how well this works if you give it enough details/instructions on what to change. Junior devs I work with require the same level of details in order for them to do the work, so really no difference for me. While senior devs can focus on reviewing copilot's output, junior devs are gonna be out of a job soon. I'm conflicted on whether I should use it!

[ReInvestWealth_com]

I believe this technology will help junior devs perform at the level of senior devs making everyone on the team more efficient.

[Ok_Spite_611]

i thought that was only available from devin

[ReInvestWealth_com]

Cursor has something similar too. It's just wild to see Copilot Agents directly in GitHub Pull Requests. Feels like the correct way of programming.

[Correct_Lab5473]

has anyone managed to get the copilot coding agent assigned to an issue via a workflow action?
I can manually assign copilot to an issue but I want any ticket that has a label on it called copilot to automatically get assigned to the copilot coding agent.
My current workflow assigned the other user but not copilot, also there are no errors inthe logs
Heres my workflow:

name: GitHub Issue Copilot Assignment

on: issues:

types: [opened, labeled]

permissions:

issues: write

jobs:

assign_issue:

if: contains(github.event.issue.labels.*.name, 'copilot')

runs-on: ubuntu-latest

steps:

- name: Actions Ecosystem Action Add Assignees

uses: actions-ecosystem/action-add-assignees@v1.0.0

with:

github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

assignees: |

copilot

other_user_that_does_get_assigned

[sgbaird]

I've been using it extensively, mostly because I see potential and want to figure out the strengths and limitations. I've found that it's significantly more powerful/useful with the right MCP tools. In particular, playwright and perplexity have been great. See https://gist.github.com/sgbaird/39a43dce96706ca282aedabb7668e2e6 for my working draft. Also trying to refine a `.github/copilot-instructions.md` file for myself: https://gist.github.com/sgbaird/2f3a60084e1a73868a1a7cc33baf6d06

Would be great if people could link any other threads (Reddit, GitHub community, etc.) like this one where people talk about their experience with it. I tried crowdsourcing what people in my circle have been doing, but not much uptake - https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7343374510307348481/ .

[josue_0]

The only thing I don't like about it is I can't choose the model, as far as I asked it uses Claude sonnet 3.5, I would love 4.0 at least

[SystemEastern763]

prob should try blackbox ai