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GitHub Copilot Coding Agent

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201–210 of 372 posts

Re: GitHub Copilot Coding Agent

#201

Post by jagged-chisel »

I’ve been trying to use Copilot for a few days to get some help writing against code stored on GitHub.

Copilot has been pretty useless. It couldn’t maintain context for more than two exchanges.

Copilot: here’s some C code to do that

Me: convert that to $OTHER_LANGUAGE

Copilot: what code would you like me to convert?

Me: the code you just generated

Copilot: if you can upload a file or share a link to the code, I can help you translate it …

It points me in a direction that’s a minimum of 15 degrees off true north (“true north” being the goal for which I am coding), usually closer to 90 degrees. When I ask for code, it hallucinates over half of the API calls.

Re: GitHub Copilot Coding Agent

#202

Post by yellow_lead »

timrogers wrote: post #179
yellow_lead wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that PRs run actions in a more trusted context for private repos, this is a bit concerning.

As we've built Copilot coding agent, we've put a lot of thought and work into our security story. One of the things we've done here is to treat Copilot's commits like commits from a first-time contributor to an open source project. When Copilot pushes changes, your GitHub Actions workflows won't run by default, and you'll have to click the "Approve and run workflows" button in the merge box. That gives you the chance…

Nice! Thanks for that info

Re: GitHub Copilot Coding Agent

#203

Post by echelon »

timrogers wrote: post #171
dsl wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the repo where we're building the agent, the agent itself is actually the #5 contributor How does this align with Microsoft's AI safety principals? What controls are in place to prevent Copilot from deciding that it could be more effective with less limitations?

Copilot only does work that has been assigned to it by a developer, and all the code that the agent writes has to go through a pull request before it can be merged. In fact, Copilot has no write access to GitHub at all, except to push to its own branch. That ensures that all of Copilot's code goes through our normal review process which requires a review from an independent human.

Tim, are you or any of your coworkers worried this will take your jobs?

Re: GitHub Copilot Coding Agent

#204

Post by wonger_ »

skydhash wrote: post #128
doug_durham wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great technical documentation rarely gets written. You can tell the LLM the audience they are targeting and it will do a reasonable job. I truly appreciate technical writers, and hold great ones in special esteem. We live in a world where the market doesn't value this.

The market value good documentation. Anything critical and commonly used is pretty well documented (linux, databases, software like Adobe's,...). You can see how many books/articles have been written about those systems.

Well documented meaning high quality, or well documented meaning high coverage?

Re: GitHub Copilot Coding Agent

#205

Post by tines »

n2d4 wrote: post #194
tines wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As with all good marketing, the conclusions omitted and implied, no?

The implied conclusion ("Copilot made 1000 changes to the codebase") is also not survivorship bias. By that logic, literally every statement would be survivorship bias.

That’s not the implied conclusion my guy. That’s the statement.

Re: GitHub Copilot Coding Agent

#206

Post by caseysoftware »

So, fun thing.. LinkedIn doesn't use Copilot.

I recently created an course for LinkedIn Learning using generative AI for creating SDKs[0]. When I was onsite with them to record it, I found my Github Copilot calls kept failing.. with a network error. Wha?

Turns out that LinkedIn doesn't allow people onsite to to Copilot so I had to put my Mifi in the window and connect to that to do my work. It's wild.

Btw, I love working with LinkedIn and have 15+ courses with them in the last decade. This is the only issue I've ever had.. but it was the least expected one.

0: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/build-with-ai-building-bet...

Re: GitHub Copilot Coding Agent

#207

Post by dankwizard »

malfist wrote: post #192
dankwizard wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're programming on Windows, your screen is being screenshotted every few seconds anyway. If you don't think OCR isn't analysing everything resembling a letter on your screen boy do I have some news for you.

Windows recall is not installed by default

Windows Recall is the local storage, user enabled AI thing. Not what I was talking about.

Re: GitHub Copilot Coding Agent

#208

Post by n2d4 »

tines wrote: post #205
n2d4 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The implied conclusion ("Copilot made 1000 changes to the codebase") is also not survivorship bias. By that logic, literally every statement would be survivorship bias.

That’s not the implied conclusion my guy. That’s the statement.

Then what do you claim the implied conclusion is?

Re: GitHub Copilot Coding Agent

#210

Post by Arubis »

I'm building RSOLV (https://rsolv.dev) as an alternative approach to GitHub's Copilot agent.

Our key differentiator is cross-platform support - we work with Jira, Linear, GitHub, and GitLab - rather than limiting teams to GitHub's ecosystem.

GitHub's approach is technically impressive, but our experience suggests organizations derive more value from targeted automation that integrates with existing workflows rather than requiring teams to change their processes. This is particularly relevant for regulated industries where security considerations supersede feature breadth. Not everyone can just jump off of Jira on moment's notice.

Curious about others' experiences with integrating AI into your platforms and tools. Has ecosystem lock-in affected your team's productivity or tool choices?

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