Tag: github-copilot

Since August 3, 2026 you can pick a reasoning level next to the model when you start a Copilot cloud agent task. The Agent Tasks REST API has no equivalent parameter, so scripted dispatch cannot set it. Here is where the control exists, which levels each model exposes, what lands on the wire, and how to pin a default instead.

Claude Code and GitHub Copilot both ship allowedMcpServers and deniedMcpServers, but the matchers behave differently. serverName is a fallback that a single serverCommand entry silently disables, deny is a union while allow is not, and an invalid allowlist locks everything out.

GitHub's August 6, 2026 changelog adds allowedMcpServers and deniedMcpServers to copilot/managed-settings.json. URL and argv matchers, deny-wins precedence, and a fail-closed default the older name-based registry never had.

GitHub's August 3, 2026 changelog adds a comment trigger to Copilot cloud agent automations, replacing the issue_comment workflow plus PAT plus REST dispatch that teams have been hand-rolling since June.

Microsoft.Agents.AI.GitHub.Copilot 1.16.0 shipped on July 30, 2026. The Copilot CLI runtime now sits behind the ordinary AIAgent abstraction, permissions are deny-by-default, and Squad plugs a whole agent team in as one AIAgent.

Visual Studio 2026 18.8 puts expert-authored .NET and Azure agent skills in the tool picker under a Built-in category, disabled by default. The default is the interesting part.

On 2026-07-31 Microsoft shipped a polyglot unit-test agent in dotnet/skills. The interesting part is the mandatory pre-completion gate that pseudo-mutates your assertions before the agent is allowed to say it is done.

Agent skills and MCP servers in GitHub Copilot code review went GA on 2026-07-29. Here is where the files live, why skills load from the head branch, and why every MCP tool call in a review is read-only.

Claude Code, Cursor, and the GitHub Copilot coding agent all ship host allowlists for outbound traffic, and all three default to something looser than you want. The exact settings keys, a policy you can copy, and the four surfaces the allowlist does not cover.

How to convert .github/prompts/*.prompt.md into .github/skills/<name>/SKILL.md so GitHub Copilot loads them automatically. What breaks, what maps 1:1, and how to verify each skill fires.