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Basics of GitHub Copilot — Workshop

Basics of GitHub Copilot — Workshop

A practical introduction to GitHub Copilot for anyone looking to start using it for coding.

Pre-Requisites:

  • GitHub Copilot enabled on your account — check GitHub settings

  • Latest version of VS Code — required for many newer Copilot features

  • The GitHub Copilot extension installed in VS Code

  • A Codebase you want to use to practice talking to Copilot.

  • Copilot Chat working — open a project, open the chat window, and try: "What is the name of the codebase I have open?"

Duration: ~2 hours

1. Basics of GitHub Copilot

Welcome to GitHub Copilot Basics! This training takes about two hours to go through, and it's designed so you can either follow along in a live session or work through it on your own at your own pace. There are two hands-on exercises built in so you can practice as you go.

Here's what we're going to cover:

  • First half: What LLMs and AI agents are, and how GitHub Copilot works — models, modes, tools, and context

  • Second half: More advanced workflows like running multiple agents and connecting Copilot to external services with MCP

The goal here isn't just to learn Copilot — it's to learn how to think in terms of AI agents. Once you've got that down, you'll be able to pick up any of the other tools out there (Cursor, Claude Code, Windsurf, etc.) pretty easily, because they all work on the same ideas.

Alright, let's get into it.

Workshop Sections

Work through each section in order and complete the exercises as you go!

  1. LLMs vs AI Agents

  2. Models & Premium Requests

  3. Ask Mode

  4. Tools

  5. Plan Mode

  6. Agent Mode

  7. Context & Making Edits

  8. History & Checkpoints

  9. Multiple Agents & Subagents

  10. Model Context Protocol (MCP)

Wrapping Up

That's a wrap on GitHub Copilot Basics! Here's a quick recap of everything we covered:

  • What LLMs are and how they work — tokens, vectors, next-token prediction

  • What AI agents are and how they use LLMs as a brain

  • The three Copilot modes — Ask, Plan, and Agent — and when to use each

  • How to choose models and manage your premium request budget

  • How tools work and how to control which ones Copilot can access

  • Adding context through ghost text, code highlighting, drag-and-drop, and checkpoints

  • Running multiple agents simultaneously and using subagents for parallel work

  • Extending Copilot's capabilities with MCP servers

Everything here applies broadly — the mental model transfers to Cursor, Claude Code, Windsurf, and any other agent you pick up down the road.

Thanks for following along!