GitHub (Microsoft) · Frontier lab

GitHub Copilot (agent mode, cloud agent & CLI)

The most widely used AI coding tool, built into GitHub and most editors. GitHub's AI coding assistant. It's a separate product from Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Studio. It works in your editor (agent mode), in the terminal (Copilot CLI), and on GitHub.com, where you can assign an issue to the Copilot cloud agent (formerly called the coding agent) and it opens a pull request.

✓ Last verified October 15, 2026 from official sources

Pricing

Free $0 (limited chat and agent use); Pro $10/mo; Pro+ $39/mo; Max $100/mo; Business $19/seat/mo; Enterprise $39/seat/mo. Chat, agents, code review and CLI use GitHub AI Credits (1 credit = $0.01), and each plan includes a monthly allowance. Code completions don't use credits on paid plans.

Best for

Teams whose code already lives on GitHub. Developers who want one assistant across many editors. Assigning issues to an agent that opens pull requests.

Privacy · Skill

Cloud. GitHub says it doesn't train on Business or Enterprise data. Free, Pro and Pro+ interactions may be used for training unless you opt out in settings. Skill level: Beginner.

What it's great at

Agent mode edits across files in your editor
Turning GitHub issues into pull requests (cloud agent)
Reviewing every pull request

What it can do

Agent mode in VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains, Xcode, Eclipse and more: multi-file edits that run commands and tests
Cloud agent: assign work to Copilot on GitHub and it researches, plans and writes code, with or without a pull request. It can also hand tasks to third-party agents like Claude and OpenAI Codex (preview).
Copilot code review on pull requests, Copilot CLI, MCP server support, and a choice of models from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, xAI and others

Example tasks to try

Assign an issue to Copilot: "Add rate limiting to the /login endpoint, with tests."
In VS Code agent mode: "Upgrade this project to the latest React and fix the build."

Start in 5 minutes

Sign in at github.com/features/copilot and pick Free or Pro
Install the GitHub Copilot extension in VS Code (or your editor) and open the Chat view
Switch the chat to Agent, describe a small change, and review each edit
On GitHub, assign an issue to Copilot and review the pull request it opens

Go to GitHub (Microsoft)'s official page →

Watch out for

Agent and chat use draws from monthly AI Credits, so set a budget. On personal plans, turn off training use in settings if you need to.

Compare it

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Microsoft's agent builder, separate from M365 Copilot and GitHub Copilot.

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