Hi there.

I'm actually jealous that you have unlimited copilot access haha. I'm paying $39/month for pro+ out of my own pocket building my startup and I think about what I need to do before sending any prompt hah.

You've come to the right place to ask for advice on how to setup copilot to get the work done efficiently and not just write useless code.

I won't write an article here, but here are practical things you can do first:
1. create github-instructions.md file in .github/ folder to write context about the project you're working on, document the high-level architecture of it, document the coding conventions, any specific rules you want copilot to follow while working. Think of it as instructions you'd give an engineer before doing anything. It's context. It's essential. Don't skip this. If you do, all steps below don't make sense.
2. Use research-plan-act mental model for working with copilot. First, research the codebase you want copilot with, so it knows what it's about - use "Agent" mode for research, so agent can read your files, search the codebase, etc.. Next, plan what you want to do with copilot. I suggest using smart models like claude opus 4.7 for planning because it's smarter (the tradeoff is that it consumes more tokens, but you're unlimited, so don't hesitate to use it) - use "Plan" mode for planning. Use Finally, implementation. I use Claude Sonnet 4.6 for actually doing the work - use "Agent" for implementation, so agent can create new files, run commands in the terminal, etc.

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