GitHub Copilot Introduces Agent Mode; General Availability of Copilot Edits and First Look of Project Padawan Also Other Updates

GitHub Copilot has now introduced Agent Mode and has announced the general availability of Copilot Edits. A first look of Copilot’s new autonomous agent which is codenamed – ‘Project Padawan’ has also been unveiled.

Check out more about these latest updates below.

Agent Mode Now Available in Preview

The newly-introduced Agent Mode comes with a lot of capabilities and it is capable of iterating its own code, finding errors, and rectifying them, and it is also capable of suggesting terminal commands as well as analyzing run-time errors (with self healing). Speaking more, while in Agent Mode, Copilot will now iterate on the result and not just on the output, and it will also perform all sub-tasks required by inferring additional tasks which are not specified but are needed to complete the prompt or task. It will also be able to spot its own errors too.

To make use of Agent Mode, users will just have to download VS Code Insiders and enable Agent Mode for GitHub Copilot. Then, navigate to the Copilot Edits panel, and switch from ‘Edit’ to ‘Agent’.

Copilot Edits – General Availability Now in VS Code

Copilot Edits general availability is now in VS Code and preview is now on Visual Studio 2022. It combines both Chat and Inline Chat, and has the ability to make inline changes across the files users manage. Users in Copilot Edits have to specify the set of files that need to be edited and using natural conversational language, ask GitHub Copilot what is needed. Copilot Edits will thereby start making inline edits, within a user interface for fast iteration, and users may review them, accept what is suitable, and even ask for follow-up iteration until what is required is received.

Copilot Edits makes use of a dual model architecture that enhances both the editing efficiency and accuracy. Users will also be able to choose from GPT-4o, GPT-o1, GPT-o3-mini, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, and the newly-added Gemini 2.0 Flash, and set the preferred one as the foundation language model for Copilot Edits. A speculative decoding endpoint has also been developed, for an even optimal experience for users.

First Look at Project Padawan

The autonomous SWE agent that is codenamed – ‘Project Padawan’ will be shipped later this year in 2025, and it will be helping users to directly assign issues to GitHub Copilot, with any GitHub clients, and produce fully-tested pull requests. Human reviewers will also be assigned by Copilot, and their feedback will also be taken into consideration.

Every time a task is assigned, Copilot automatically makes a cloud sandbox, clones the repository, sets up an environment, analyzes, edits, builds, tests, and lints the code finally. Furthermore, in order to understand the full intent of the task, discussions within the issue or PR will also be taken into account, as well as the custom instructions that are within the repository. Conventions and guidelines of the project will also be noted.