Major Agentic Capabilities Now Available

GitHub Copilot's core agentic features are now generally available in JetBrains IDEs. Developers can now create and deploy custom agents, sub-agents, and plan agents directly within their IDE, making it easier to tailor Copilot to specific workflows and collaborate with specialized agents without leaving the development environment.

New Agent Automation and Control Features

Agent hooks are now available in public preview, enabling developers to run custom commands at critical points during agent sessions. Hooks support key events including userPromptSubmitted, preToolUse, postToolUse, and errorOccurred, allowing teams to automate workflows, enforce policies, and integrate with external systems while maintaining control over agent behavior. Additionally, auto-approve support for MCP (Model Context Protocol) reduces manual approvals by allowing configuration at both the server and tool level.

Enhanced Customization and Instruction Management

Copilot now supports AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md instruction files, which are automatically discovered and loaded during agent workflows. Developers can manage these instruction files through Settings > GitHub Copilot > Customizations and can generate initial AGENTS.md files using the new Generate Agent Instructions action. A new /memory slash command provides quick access to instruction file settings.

Improved Model Selection and Visibility

Auto model selection is now generally available for all Copilot plans, allowing Copilot to automatically choose the best model based on real-time availability and performance. The update introduces a thinking panel for extended-reasoning models with configurable Anthropic thinking budgets, and a context window usage indicator in the chat panel for visibility into resource utilization.

User Experience and Quality Improvements

The sign-in experience has been streamlined with automatic chat panel opening after authentication, smoother GitHub Enterprise login flows, and improved Windows ARM platform support. Quality improvements include enhanced stability for terminal output reading, fixed file update issues with the replace_string_in_file tool, and resolution of UI inconsistencies. Edit mode has been deprecated in the chat mode dropdown.