Assign GitHub issues to Copilot coding agent
A developer assigned a GitHub issue to Copilot and watched it work, but it started from the default branch instead of the intended feature branch.
Done withGitHub Copilot
- What they did
- The developer assigned Copilot to a GitHub issue and watched it create a new branch, open a pull request, work through the issue, run tests, and push changes on its own. They found it only worked well after rewriting the issue with very detailed instructions, then used PR comments to iterate while keeping human review, testing, and deployment decisions for themselves.
- How it went
- After a few tries, Copilot successfully completed a real backlog issue, and the poster said they could hand it simpler tasks and review the PR later. The main shortcoming was that it always branched from the default branch, even when told to start from a specific feature branch.
- Worth knowing
- The main catch was instruction quality: the poster said issues had to be overly descriptive and detailed before the agent performed well.
Try it yourself with GitHub Copilot
Assign this GitHub issue to the Copilot coding agent: [issue link]. Before it starts, make sure it works from the [feature branch name] branch and not the default branch, and put that in the task instructions. When it finishes, give me a pull request against [feature branch name] with a short summary of what changed, and don't merge anything until I've reviewed it.
Want help getting this working? Join the Vibe Coding Academy ↗ Run by Alex Finn, who also runs this site.
Source: Reddit · Undated
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