It might be hard to believe, but GitHub Copilot has been generally available for almost two years! Over that time, we’ve gotten feedback from many of the millions of developers who use Copilot every day, and that has allowed us to improve the product, and learn how to better incorporate and optimize how AI fits into their workflows. It has been rich, rewarding work, and we’re just getting started!

In this edition of The GitHub Insider, we thought it would be fun to take a stroll through memory lane, looking back on the first few years of GitHub Copilot’s life, reminisce about some big milestones, and offer up some best practices that we’ve learned from a few of Copilot’s sticky spots.

Let's go!

When Copilot was just a baby 👶

GitHub Copilot was officially launched to the public in June 2022, less than two years ago! (Kids grow up so fast! 🥲) GitHub Copilot for Business became available in December 2022, and we continued to add new features. In December 2023, we made GitHub Copilot Chat generally available to users and organizations and in February 2024, we made Copilot available for enterprise users. And we’re not slowing down. Earlier this month, GitHub Copilot Chat in GitHub Mobile became available to everyone!

• June 2021: GitHub Copilot is first announced in private preview. Our world is never the same.
• June 2022: GitHub Copilot becomes generally available to all users.
• December 2022: GitHub Copilot for Business becomes available.
• December 2023: GitHub Copilot Chat becomes generally available for all users and organizations.
• February 2024: GitHub Copilot for Enterprise launches.
• May 2024: GitHub Copilot Chat in GitHub Mobile becomes available to everyone.
• May 2024: GitHub Copilot Extensions launches in preview.

As exciting as this journey has been, it hasn’t been without its growing pains! Copilot is young and it isn’t perfect (though it’s getting better all the time!) and it still might wobble a little when it comes to a few things.

👉 Limitations ❌

• Accuracy: the code might offer the correct syntax, but still be semantically wrong. In other words, it looks correct but isn’t going to compile.
• Efficiency: the code might work, but might not be the most efficient in terms of performance or resource usage.
• Security: the code produced might be insecure.
• Compliance: the code produced might not comply with the best practices of your project or organization.

Remember, as we always say, we call it Copilot for a reason: the person in control of this metaphorical coding bus is you. 🚌

⭐ Steps you can take to mitigate these concerns:

Code review and testing. 🍄 Review and test the code that Copilot produces, don't just accept and commit. Remember, you can use Copilot to help with creating tests for your code, but it's still important to actually run those tests and to review the code that Copilot helps create, just like you would anything else.

Security best practices. 🔒 Be sure to follow best practices around writing secure code. You can also leverage tools like GitHub Advanced Security alongside code scanning autofix to use AI to help find and autofix known vulnerabilities before they are committed.

Regular updates and patch management. 🧩 Use tools like Dependabot to keep your dependencies up-to-date and patched against future vulnerabilities.

Use judiciously. 🙅 AI is fantastic. We love our AI overlords. But at the same time, it isn’t a panacea; a good practice is to only let AI assist with code that you understand.

Control your code referencing settings. 🪄 Copilot can suggest code snippets that match publicly available code and provide references to the corresponding code on GitHub.com. But not every project or organization wants to opt into that feature. Depending on your own situation, you can configure your Copilot settings to turn the public code suggestion feature on or off.

For more tips on how to get the most out of Copilot and mitigate potential pitfalls, check out Microsoft Build's free virtual sessions, or watch this recorded session from Ignite 2023. 👇

We’re looking forward to watching Copilot grow up, thrive, and help take your development to the next level! 🔥

Get started with GitHub Copilot

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✨ This newsletter was written by Christina Warren and produced by Gwen Davis. ✨

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