#GitHub Copilot

#GitHub Copilot

Microsoft and GitHub have made AI assistance a key part of their software development tools. Embedded in the latest Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code releases, GitHub Copilot puts a multifaceted pair programmer-combining AI-powered code completion, coding agents, and various Model Context Protocol servers-right inside your editor. The resulting tool kit is especially useful as part of a well-designed application development life cycle. Outside of good software engineering practices, however, it's easy to let vibe coding run away with itself, adding features that aren't needed and making code overly complex.

Code Optimizations is an AI-based service running on Azure Application Insights that uses telemetry gathered by the Application Insights Profiler for .NET to analyse runtime behaviour, find performance bottlenecks down to individual methods, and provide actionable suggestions. Developers can view aggregated data over time (defaulting to a rolling 24‑hour window, with history up to 30 days) for their production and non-production environments.

Microsoft has released its first preview of the Visual Studio 2026 IDE through the company's new Insiders channel, which replaces the old Preview channel for early access to upcoming features. The new IDE offers deeper integration of the GitHub Copilot AI coding assistant, including a profiler agent that analyzes performance and suggests fixes. Visual Studio 2026 Insiders, announced September 9, can be downloaded at visualstudio.microsoft.com/insiders/.

"In the GitHub Copilot training program, they're learning how to be experts in GitHub Copilot itself," said Carrol Chang, Andela CEO, in an interview with The Register. "The reason we chose GitHub Copilot after having looked at a bunch of different code editing and code creation tools in the market is that GitHub Copilot is the clear winner across enterprise customers."

Product manager Allie Barrie said that Visual Studio can now connect to local or remote MCP servers, configured using a file called .mcp.json which can be in a user profile, for global use, or in an individual solution. Developers can add MCP servers either by editing this file directly, or using settings in the GitHub Copilot chat window. There is also provision for one-click installation from the web. OAuth authentication is supported, for example to allow the MCP tools to have GitHub access.

The update continues the extension's goal of making SQL development conversational, visual and local by improving Copilot Agent mode, adding colour-coded connections, streamlining local container workflows and polishing the Schema Designer.

Since GitHub Copilot launched as a preview in Summer 2021, we have seen an explosion of coding assistant products. Initially used as code completion on steroids, some products in this space (like Cursor and Windsurf) rapidly moved towards agentic interactions.

During Microsoft Build 2025, Microsoft announced that it is transforming Copilot into a fully-fledged AI agent capable of independent reasoning and decision-making.