Playbook
โ THE AI DEV PLAYBOOK โ
A structured map of GitHub Copilot tools and concepts across the SDLC: planning, development, review, testing, security, and operations. Note: this is a personal learning resource and some details may be outdated โ always refer to the latest GitHub documentation โ for the source of truth.
Introduction
ใฏใใใซ 3 items
๐ค Mona
A platform-level overview of GitHub and GitHub Copilot.
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NO.01GitHub
The AI-native developer platform used by more than 240 million developers. From Pull Requests to GitHub Copilot, GitHub continues to shape the history of software development.
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NO.02GitHub Copilot
The world's most widely used AI development tool. An orchestrator that lets you freely combine major AI models with a variety of surfaces.
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NO.03Hands-on
A workshop where you get hands-on with the concepts in this playbook by rebuilding a simplified version of this very playbook site from scratch โ together with Copilot. Touches MCP / Instructions / Agent Skills / Plan mode / Cloud Agent / Code Review / Agentic Workflow end-to-end.
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Plan
ไผ็ป 8 items
๐ค Team Manager
Plan with Issues and Projects, then prepare the AI harness with MCP servers, instruction files, agent skills, and custom agents.
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NO.3.4Collaboration Tools
GitHub's toolbox for working together. Starting from the Pull Request GitHub invented, a quick tour of Issues & Sub-issues, Discussions, and Projects, with the "why it's good" for each and the official links to dig deeper.
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NO.3.5Harness Engineering
The discipline of designing the scaffold that lets agents operate safely and effectively โ tools, constraints, permissions, and external connections.
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NO.04MCP Server
MCP Server (Model Context Protocol)
MCP is a method for providing additional context to AI models.
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NO.05Instructions
Persistent rule files that give AI standing development guidelines at the repository or file level, so every teammate's Copilot follows the same conventions.
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NO.06Agent Skills
Reusable instruction packs that teach Copilot agents how to handle specialized tasks โ loaded automatically when the request matches, no re-explaining required.
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NO.07Custom Agent
A specialist profile that bundles role, tools, and behavior together for Copilot. Switch between Planner, Reviewer, and Tester personas with their own permissions.
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NO.7.5Hooks
A mechanism for injecting custom scripts into the agent execution lifecycle (session start, prompt submission, pre/post tool execution, error, session end). Configured via `.github/hooks/hooks.json`. The most powerful hook is PreToolUse, which can deny specific commands (rm -rf, sudo, pushes to production, etc.) to block the agent. Works with both Copilot CLI and Cloud Agent.
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NO.8.5Context Engineering
The art of designing the context you pass to AI โ not too little, not too much, just the information needed to complete the task.
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Develop
้็บ 8 items
๐ค Junior Developer
Code in shared Codespaces environments with Plan / Agent mode, Copilot Chat, and the CLI. Delegate work to Cloud Agent for parallel development.
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NO.3.5Copilot Chat
The synchronous conversation surface for Copilot. Available across IDE, GitHub.com, and Mobile, with the deepest harness on the IDE side.
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NO.14Copilot CLI
Copilot living in the terminal. An IDE-agnostic "colleague in the terminal" that lets you move between planning โ implementation โ review with just Shift+Tab.
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NO.15Cloud Agent
A "doppelganger" that works through the night even when you leave the IDE. Assign an Issue and it implements, verifies, and returns with a PR from a GitHub Actions runner.
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NO.15.5Partner agents
A mechanism to launch coding agents other than Copilot โ such as Claude or Codex โ from VS Code and GitHub with the same feel as Copilot.
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Copilot App
A purpose-built desktop app for agent-driven development. Run multiple agents in parallel and handle issue triage, implementation, review, and merge in one placeโwithout bouncing between IDE, terminal, and browser.
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VS Code Agents Window
A dedicated, chat-first VS Code window that spans every workspace at once. Start, monitor, and review agent sessions across all your projects from a single sessions list, instead of opening one window per repository.
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NO.17Codespaces
Customizable remote development environments hosted in the cloud. The ideal AI-driven development playground for safely sandboxing AI experiments and work.
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NO.17.5Spaces
A shared place to organize the context you want Copilot to use: code, issues, pull requests, docs, notes, images, uploads, and instructions that ground Copilot's answers.
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Review
ใฌใใฅใผ 2 items
๐ค Senior Developer
Let Copilot perform automated code review so humans can focus on final judgment.
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Pull Requests
The mechanism GitHub created in 2008 that changed how developers collaborate. The propose โ discuss โ review โ merge flow, now backed by rulesets, automated checks, and Copilot review.
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NO.09Copilot Code Review
Copilot can be assigned as a reviewer โ manually or automatically โ to read code intent and return inline comments, PR summaries, and fix suggestions. Goes from pre-review noise reduction all the way to full automation.
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Test & Secure
ใในใ & ๅ่ณชไฟ่จผ 6 items
๐ค DevSecOps Engineer
Automate tests with GitHub Actions, maintain quality with Code Quality, and secure code with Code Scanning, Secret Scanning, and Dependabot.
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NO.19.2GitHub Actions
GitHub's native CI/CD and automation platform. Steps written in .github/workflows/*.yml run automatically on push / PR / schedule. Public repos are free; private repos get a free tier plus pay-as-you-go. Cloud Agent and Copilot Code Review also run on top of this.
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NO.19.3GHAS
GitHub Advanced Security
GitHub's paid security suite, sold as two products. Secret Protection ($19) keeps credentials out of the repo, Code Security ($30) finds vulnerabilities in the code. Billed per active committer. Public repos are free.
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NO.19.4Secret Scanning
GitHub's secret detection feature that automatically finds API keys and tokens in commits, issues, PRs, and history. Core coverage is free for public repositories; private and internal repositories require Secret Protection.
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NO.19.5Code Scanning
Code scanning finds vulnerabilities with CodeQL static analysis (SAST). Eligible findings can receive Copilot Autofix suggestions or be assigned to Copilot for remediation.
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Code Quality
GitHub Code Quality catches reliability and maintainability issues before merge using CodeQL and AI, suggests fixes, reports coverage and quality scores, and enforces quality gates with rulesets.
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NO.19.7Dependabot
GitHub's official bot that monitors repository dependencies for vulnerabilities and opens automated fix PRs. Built on the dependency graph, it runs in three layers โ Security alerts, Security updates, and Version updates. Free for public and private repos.
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Operate
้็จ 5 items
๐ค Whole Team
Automate operations with agentic workflows, visualize AI usage with Copilot Metrics, and accumulate knowledge through Memory.
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NO.16Agentic Workflow
A new kind of automation that runs AI agents on top of GitHub Actions. Write what you want done in natural language Markdown and get workflows that can reason and act.
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NO.16.5Token Optimization
Tokens get cheaper by raising agent quality, not by shaving prompts. Use model choice, context engineering, deterministic guardrails, and the right agent configs to make every token count.
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NO.18Copilot Metrics
Measure Copilot adoption, engagement, code generation, and delivery impact through dashboards and exportable APIs.
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NO.19Copilot Memory
A mechanism for Copilot to remember and reuse knowledge learned while working in a repository, passing it on to future selves and the whole team. Gets smarter the more you use it.
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Operational Tools
GitHub's toolbox for putting collaboration into operation. A quick tour of private Packages and the container registry, and Integrations (GitHub Apps).
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Administration
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๐ค Enterprise Admin
Govern licenses, policies, and billing at the Enterprise and Organization level. Decide safely who gets access to what.
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NO.29.5Enterprise Setup
From creating a GitHub Enterprise Cloud (EMU) account to configuring SSO โ spin up a 30-day free trial, set up OIDC or SAML via Entra ID, and get your team ready to log in.
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NO.30Copilot Licence
How GitHub Copilot is billed at the Enterprise level, assigned at the Enterprise or Org level, and how policies / billing behave when a user belongs to multiple organizations โ including outside collaborators and EMU guest collaborators.
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NO.30.5Usage-based Billing
Usage-based Billing (UBB)
On June 1, 2026 GitHub Copilot moved to usage-based billing (UBB). Cost is tied to the tokens actually processed (input, output, cached), and usage is shown and budgeted in GitHub AI credits (1 credit = $0.01 USD). The core principles, aligned with the docs.
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Governance
The layer that controls "who can do what" at the Enterprise and Organization level. Covers per-repository permission roles, the repo โ org โ enterprise policy hierarchy, and enterprise-managed settings (managed-settings.json) that centrally govern Copilot agents and clients.
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