GitHub Copilot previews agent mode

GitHub has added new capabilities to its GitHub Copilot AI-powered coding assistant, including a preview of a new agent mode capable of iterating on its own code. The company also announced the general availability of Copilot Edits in Visual Studio Code.

The updates, announced February 6, serve as an evolution of GitHub Copilot from an AI pair programmer to an agentic peer programmer, as agents become increasingly integral to software development, according to GitHub.

Copilot Edits allows developers to specify a set of files to be edited and prompt Copilot in natural language to immediately make inline changes across multiple files. Agent mode enables Copilot to iterate on its own output as well as the results of that output to complete a user request. Agent mode can recognize and fix its own errors, suggest terminal commands, and analyze runtime errors with self-healing capabilities, GitHub said.

To access agent mode, developers need to download VS Code Insiders and then enable the agent mode setting for GitHub Copilot Chat.

Other features in preview include:

New models from industry leaders including Google Gemini 2.0 Flash and OpenAI o3-mini available in Copilot Chat. Administrators have organization-wide access control.

Next edit suggestions to accelerate code changes by identifying and proposing the next edit based on the context of previous changes. By pressing tab, users can implement suggestions throughout an open file with insertions, deletions, and replacements.

Prompt files that allow users to store and share reusable prompt instructions in their VS Code workspace. These “blueprints” include self-contained markdown files that blend natural language guidance, file references, and linked snippets to “supercharge” coding tasks.

Vision for Copilot, a feature that allows users to generate a UI, alt text, and code by feeding Copilot a screen, image, or snip.

The company also unveiled “Project Padawan,” which involves plans for autonomous SWE agents on GitHub that will independently handle entire tasks at the developer’s direction. This effort represents a future where developers can assign GitHub issues to GitHub Copilot, let AI complete the task autonomously, and then review the work.

GitHub also announced provisioning and authentication support for GitHub Copilot Workspace for Enterprise Managed Users. This allows organizations to configure and control Workspace access securely, GitHub said.