Configure GitHub Copilot: Settings, Sessions, and Modes

Shivani Sundaresan and Grant Harris walk through configuring the GitHub Copilot app for day-to-day AI-assisted development, focusing on practical settings like accounts, tool permissions, agent instructions, sessions, model selection, and how Interactive, Plan, and Autopilot modes fit together when building features in a repo.

Overview

The video explains how to tune the GitHub Copilot app experience so it behaves predictably across repositories and tasks.

What they configure in the Copilot app

• Navigating the app experience around:
  • A repository
  • Copilot Chat
  • Sessions (separating work by task/context)
• Opening settings and managing accounts
• Configuring:
  • Tool permissions
  • Agent instructions
• Adjusting themes and accessibility settings

Sessions, repositories, and keeping work separated

• How repositories and sessions relate to each other in the Copilot app
• Using Git worktrees to keep sessions separate when working on different changes in parallel

Model selection and “reasoning effort”

• Choosing an AI model for the task
• Adjusting “reasoning effort” to influence how the model approaches the work

Copilot modes: Interactive vs Plan vs Autopilot

• Interactive mode: used for back-and-forth exploration and guidance
• Plan mode: used to draft and refine a concrete implementation plan (example: planning a new “hobbies” section)
• Autopilot mode: used to implement the plan and apply changes in the repo
• Reviewing the result (the completed “hobbies” section) and recapping the configuration concepts

Links and resources

• Series site: https://aka.ms/student-learning-series-website
• Episode artifacts (prompts/code): https://aka.ms/student-learning-series
• Learn more about GitHub Copilot: https://aka.ms/StudentAI-GitHubCopilotApp
• Shivani Sundaresan (LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/shivanisundaresan/
• Grant Harris (LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/grantwharris/