Agentic Capabilities Now Generally Available

Custom agents, sub-agents, and plan agent features are now generally available in GitHub Copilot for JetBrains IDEs. These capabilities allow developers to tailor Copilot to their specific workflows and collaborate with specialized agents directly within their IDE environment, making advanced AI-assisted development more accessible.

New Features and Improvements

Agent Hooks in Public Preview Agent hooks let developers run custom commands at key points during agent sessions. Supported events include userPromptSubmitted, preToolUse, postToolUse, and errorOccurred, enabling automated workflows, policy enforcement, and integration with external tools while maintaining control over agent behavior.

MCP Auto-Approve Configuration Developers can now configure auto-approve for Model Context Protocol (MCP) at both the server and tool level, reducing manual approvals during chat and agent sessions. This setting is accessible via Settings > GitHub Copilot > Chat > MCP Server and Tool Auto-approve Configuration.

Agent Instruction Files Support for AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md instruction files has been added, with automatic discovery and loading during agent workflows. Copilot can generate initial instruction files and supports nested file structures across workspaces. Instruction files are managed through Settings > GitHub Copilot > Customizations.

Model Selection and Reasoning Enhancements

Auto Model Selection Generally Available Auto model selection is now generally available across all Copilot plans, allowing Copilot to intelligently choose models based on real-time availability and performance without manual switching.

Extended Reasoning Visibility A dedicated thinking panel for extended-reasoning models (such as Codex) provides visibility into the model's reasoning process with configurable Anthropic thinking budgets. Additionally, a new context window usage indicator in the chat panel shows how much context is being used during conversations.

Quality and User Experience Improvements

The update includes refined sign-in flows (with device code prioritization for GitHub Enterprise users), improved chat panel responsiveness, cleaner context handling, better Windows ARM support, and numerous stability fixes including improved terminal output reading and corrected file updates from the replace_string_in_file tool.

Deprecation Notice: Edit mode has been marked as deprecated in the chat mode dropdown.