Performance Optimization

GitHub has optimized the Copilot coding agent to reduce startup times by 50%. This means when you assign work to the agent—whether through issue assignment, the Agents tab, or @copilot mentions in pull requests—it reaches your codebase faster and begins making changes sooner.

How to Use

You can leverage the faster Copilot coding agent in multiple ways:

• Assign issues directly to Copilot, which will create pull requests to resolve them
• Use the Agents tab in your repository to prompt Copilot to create pull requests from scratch
• Mention @copilot in pull request comments to request iterative changes on existing work

What This Means for Developers

With shorter startup times, you get:

• Faster pull request creation when asking Copilot to write code from scratch
• Quicker feedback loops when iterating on pull requests with the @copilot mention
• Reduced wait time before the agent begins running tests and pushing changes in its cloud-based development environment

The Copilot coding agent continues to work in a cloud-based environment where it makes changes, executes your test suite, and pushes completed work back to your repository. The 50% faster startup time compounds these benefits across all agent workflows.

For more details, refer to the Copilot coding agent documentation.