Allison covers the latest updates to the GitHub Copilot coding agent, highlighting its new ability to search the web, automate pull request creation, and assist developers by gathering current information for coding tasks.

Copilot Coding Agent Can Now Search the Web

The GitHub Copilot coding agent is an asynchronous, autonomous background agent designed to help developers automate their coding workflows. With this latest update, Copilot can now supplement its existing model knowledge by searching the web to provide enhanced assistance for coding-related tasks.

Key Features

Delegation and Autonomy: Developers can delegate coding tasks to the Copilot agent, which will open a draft pull request, implement background code changes, and request a review upon completion.
Web Search Integration: The agent goes beyond built-in knowledge by:
- Debugging unusual error messages with real-world data
- Understanding recent changes in languages and libraries introduced after the model’s last training cycle
- Researching current best practices sourced from the web

Access and Administration

Availability:
- Copilot coding agent is available to Copilot Pro, Copilot Pro+, Copilot Business, and Copilot Enterprise subscribers
Admin Controls:
- For Copilot Business and Enterprise users, administrators must enable the “Copilot coding agent” and “Copilot can search the web” features through policy settings (detailed documentation).

Getting Started

To learn more about how to utilize the Copilot coding agent and configure its new features, refer to the official Copilot coding agent documentation.

Summary

With its enhanced ability to search the web, the Copilot coding agent offers developers access to more up-to-date and context-rich solutions, further streamlining development tasks and improving productivity.

This post appeared first on “The GitHub Blog”. Read the entire article here