GitHub Copilot App Feedback

Post your feedback on the GitHub Copilot App as a comment below — or use the /feedback slash command in the comment box to auto-fill the template. Don't overthink it — we want your gut reactions!

If comfortable, please record yourself launching the app for the first time [optional]. Feel free to answer the questions below in your recording by talking out loud rather than writing it down – no need to repeat your answers if you've already answered them verbally. You may attach your video to the discussion comment, or provide a link to a video.

You've had a few days with the app now. We'd love to hear how things have evolved.

Again, please feel free to share recordings of specific, real workflows that involve the GitHub Copilot App. Talk out loud and feel free to answer the questions below verbally in the video or through written answers.

1. What have you tried doing with the app so far (e.g., start a new project, review a PR, write code, etc.), and why?

2. What has been most useful about this app? What tasks is it particularly suited for?

3. How does this experience compare to other tools you use today (e.g., Copilot in your IDE, Claude Code, Codex)? What does the GitHub App do better or worse?

4. What is missing, or confusing, if anything?

5. What type of tasks do you still feel like you need to go to github.com or other tools for?

6. If you had a magic wand to make this app just right for you, what would you change?

[jessejlt]

Windows + WSL support is limited. Otherwise, really like the direction of this project.

[albertored]

Not only WIndows + WSL but in general it would be very useful to a feature similar to vscode remote SSH.
Ideally it should be possible to open repositories remotely so that agent can run commands and use skills directly on the target machine without the need of installing the tooling on the Windows (or whatever else) host

[joshuameng]

I am unable to login after installing on Windows. I click "Sign in to GitHub". The application states "Opening GitHub.com to authorize..." and provides an 8 digit code. The web browser never opens, so I navigate manually to https://github.com/login/device/ to enter the code. After submitting the code I get the message "Uh oh, we couldn't find anything Please make sure you entered the user code correctly."

[codess-aus]

Tried to install it, but it's not trusted. Have reported it as safe, but as I'm not the owner they might not believe me

[dgibson66]

I pulled the Appimage to one of our RHEL8.8 systems with no luck. Can you build on as old a system as possible so that those of us in the corporate space have a prayer of running it without having to go virtual?

ETA: Yes I know that there are dinosaurs younger than RHEL8.8 but still, at least sharing what the system requirements are would help.

[SlothCroissant]

Need the ability to have the "commit" button use a custom commit message syntax with a given model - much like VSCode provides: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/sourcecontrol/staging-commits. Bonus points if you can select the model and provide specific instructions for commit messages.

Having to leave the GitHub App just to commit and push changes seems a bit silly. Alternative is to just have my instructions set to commit changes, but then at that point, the button is useless :)

[SlothCroissant]

With this UI, it really takes Copilot CLI to the next level, IMO (beyond the CLI, as it were :)

Idea that could be exceedingly useful in many enterprises - support UI navigation of GitHub Copilot marketplaces (https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/how-tos/copilot-cli/customize-copilot/plugins-marketplace)

Keeping the marketplace experience inside one cohesive UI would be brilliant - install plugins, skills, agents, etc - all without leaving the app.

[cquanu]

Any plans to support transcribing or dictation?

[cquanu]

How can we edit our message just like in VS Code GHC agent.

[cquanu]

Chat mode: the PR status icon is wrong. It returned a list of "open PRs/color" that were already merged.

[jcleigh]

Please add automated workflows running on Copilot Cloud Agent instead of only locally

[cyonix]

I'd like to see the Chat Debug View feature ported here as well.

[AnushPadmanabhan]

It is awesome that we can have our team-specific custom workflow as a template here. We were in the verge of building something similar for the entire org. Super cool, we can improve on this.

[trollfalgar]

The browser don´t allow us to open different domains. For exemple, .test domains cannot be open. Forcing us to use localhost:port.

[Liebeck]

First of all. Thank you very much!

1. What have you tried doing with the app so far (e.g., start a new project, review a PR, write code, etc.), and why?

I have used three sessions for maintenance tasks on an existing project. For more details, see my newsletter post https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/episode-7-first-look-new-github-copilot-app-dr-matthias-liebeck-yniue

2. What has been most useful about this app? What tasks is it particularly suited for?

Very smooth UI experience. I love switching between the sessions, the progress indicator and the sound. I'm not sure if you prioritized my sessions since they were through the App, but they felt very very fast, like 5x from what I'm used to.

3. How does this experience compare to other tools you use today (e.g., Copilot in your IDE, Claude Code, Codex)? What does the GitHub App do better or worse?

The UI was very smooth. Still in early stages, but I can see myself switch to the GitHub Copilot App as main development environment for agentic coding in the next couple of months, if the issues from point 4 (see blow) are addressed.

4. What is missing, or confusing, if anything?

The most confusing what the Git commit behaviour. At first, I only managed to get automatic commits working, #419. Then, I guess I can't find a commit button or a way to specify a commit message #423

Maybe it's already there, but confusing since I can't find it.

#421
#422

5. What type of tasks do you still feel like you need to go to github.com or other tools for?

Right now, manual commits feel like I need to switch out of the GitHub App into a Git UI like Fork.

I'm also not sure how to use multiple sessions that from my local docker test setup in parallel. Usually, I would run my full E2E PlayWright test suite, but I have no idea how I would have three sessions that access the same docker container or at least something like "okay I need to access containers that session A uses. I wait until session A is done to spin up my own containers".

6. If you had a magic wand to make this app just right for you, what would you change?

See 4)

[AaronRobinsonMSFT]

I've got some feedback and a question from the Bing team.

I switched from copilot cli to the copilot app since you left. it's pretty crazy I feel like there's no reason to use the CLI anymore after using it exclusively for development the last couple of months.

Yay!

Is the copilot app using the same SDK as the CLI?

This is the question I'm trying to answer. I assume yes?

Where is the best place to talk directly with the team? I've got dual access and have access to Slack.

[Hommchen]

The right side "Files" cannot select the text to copy-paste. and it's hard to drag the file/folder path to the chat to tell the agent which files it needs to read.

[kforge-labs-io]

Is there a way to bring my own model? I have a paid Claude Max sub, and I'd love to use it in this app...

[jaa12f]

Few comments:

1. whenever I open the apps, it doesn't load like an app that has already been installed. It always open the installation wizard and reinstalls the app. It delays opening by a few minutes, but all the previous content (i.e., chats) is still there.

2. There should be a setting to limit which directories github copilot has access to. I currently don't find the settings and it has access to information it should not have access to. I am being careful with my instructions for now.

3. When it is executing a task and you need to provide additional instructions there should be a way to interrupt the execution with the new text. Right now the new prompt stays in a "queue", but it would be nice if there was a button next to the queued chat that allowed me to "send" the message and interrupt the current execution with this new information.

[ericknyoto]

Poor WSL integration — agent runs in Windows context, not WSL shell

When the project repository lives inside WSL (e.g. \\wsl.localhost\Ubuntu-24.04\...), the Copilot CLI agent operates in a Windows PowerShell context rather than the WSL Linux environment. This causes several practical problems:

---

Issues encountered

1. Built-in tools (grep, glob, view) reject UNC paths

Any file under \\wsl.localhost\... is blocked with "UNC path not permitted", making these core tools unusable on WSL-hosted repos.

2. Shell commands run in PowerShell, not bash

The agent spawns powershell.exe instead of a WSL shell. Linux-native tools (rg, find, awk, etc.) are only available if installed on Windows separately — not from the WSL distro.

3. Traversal over UNC is extremely slow

Select-String / Get-ChildItem -Recurse over \\wsl.localhost\... is orders of magnitude slower than native filesystem access, causing frequent timeouts on medium-to-large repos.

4. rg (ripgrep) works inconsistently

Even when available on Windows, scanning a large WSL repo via UNC frequently hits timeouts and returns incomplete results.

5. No way to explicitly configure the shell to WSL bash

There is no configuration option to tell the agent "this project lives in WSL, use wsl.exe as the shell."

---

Expected behavior

When the workspace path resolves to a WSL filesystem, the agent should detect this and spawn commands via:

wsl.exe -- bash -c "..."

This would give the agent access to the full Linux toolchain and native filesystem performance.

---

Environment

OS	Windows 11 with WSL2 (Ubuntu 24.04)
Repo path	/home/<user>/projects/...
Accessed via	\\wsl.localhost\\Ubuntu-24.04...

[akfry10]

1. with model costs increasing dramatically (not faulting github for this), we need ability to use cheaper models or bring our own models
2. I'm a bit confused what the workflow is supposed to be with the separate worktrees being checked out for every context. An example - I test mobile app features in a simulator. Before when I was using the Github CLI it worked on my local directory and I just reloaded the simulator to visually see any changes that it made. Now I have to relaunch the simulator from each new worktree? I'm probably missing something in the workflow

[PhilMinecraft]

is GitHub Copilot app made in WinUI, web app or a different framework and what framework is it?

[cyonix]

Need granular breakdown of token usage. It's great that I can view the input/output token traffic per session (see attached image). Can we also maybe get some clickable on-hover links that opens up a panel with trace data on:

• agent discovery phase (loaded instructions, loaded skills, triggered hooks etc)
• model turns,
• tool calls,
• input/output tokens,
• cache tokens

[ankushbindlish2]

/feedback How to set mcp servers in bulk by changing file like mcp.json

[aczarkowski]

I am not sure if this has been proposed by someone else but there is one feature I really would like to have, Workspaces!. Currently all the skills, mcp, plugins etc are all available on every conversation/session. I would like to be able to setup a named workspace where I can select what skills, mcp are available on that workspace. When I am working on some feature sometimes skills like superpowers are great. On the other hand when I work on an application/service which follows a cookie cutting exercise I prefer to have own skills available while others might go in a way.

[chinkeongang]

I would to request "Subagent Configuration" features same as GitHub Copilot CLI "/subagents" command. The use case is keep the orchestration LLM model as frontier model on cloud API while host saving happen at subagent model being swap to local run LLM models for exploration task, code-review and other one-shot summary task. The objective is to save token cost by having hybrid of API and local hosted models working together. GitHub Copilot App already supports Model Providers but currently only being used in Chat session as the main orchestration model and there is no GUI interface in the settings section to further customize Subagent model to select a different models.

[Jess02]

Title: Feature Request: Allow selecting shell type (cmd, bash, Git Bash) instead of only PowerShell

Description:

In corporate environments, PowerShell may be disabled via Group Policy (GPO), EDR agents, or AppLocker restrictions, while cmd.exe or Git Bash remain available. Currently, the Copilot Desktop agent only supports executing commands through a PowerShell tool. When PowerShell is blocked, the agent loses ALL command execution capabilities — it cannot run git, mvn, npm, or any CLI tool.

Impact:

Cannot commit or push changes
Cannot run builds or tests
Cannot create PRs via gh CLI
Cannot verify file system state
The agent is reduced to file editing only
Suggested improvement:
Allow users to configure the shell backend (PowerShell, cmd.exe, bash, Git Bash, WSL) in Copilot Desktop settings. A fallback chain would also help (e.g., try PowerShell → cmd → Git Bash).

Environment:

OS: Windows (corporate managed)
Tool: Copilot Desktop App (CLI agent)
PowerShell: Disabled by corporate policy
cmd.exe: Available
Git Bash: Available
Workaround:
User must manually execute all commands in the terminal canvas panel, which defeats the purpose of autonomous agent operation.

[kjingers]

Feature Request: Ability to Restart / Re-enable MCP servers / tools in a running session

I notice for sessions I keep open for a while the MCP tools go away (which is expected). Is there a way to restart the MCP servers / tools in a session in the GHCP app? I found I can summarize + create a new session, which starts the mcps and tools in a fresh session. But was wondering if there was a good way to restart the tools in the same conversation? Or a better way to manage that?

I know /mcp exists for the CLI. And in VSCode - we are able to disable+reenable MCP servers and tools. But I'm not sure the best way in GHCP app.

I've tried quitting and restarting the GHCP, (which apparently does a restart_session, which should restart MCP servers), but this does not work for me. I think that may have worked once - but not consistently.

[travkin79]

I like working with GitHub Copilot Desktop App. It has a pleasant UI (with dark mode) and a good GitHub integration (in contrast to Claude Desktop App). I prefer using the GH Copilot Desktop App as a separate client in its own window (placeable on a second screen) with a uniform UI/UX, rather than using different IDE integrations across VSCode, IntelliJ IDEA, and Eclipse, each with its own UI and capabilities.

• GH Copilot Desktop App offers a great overview of the open sessions, grouped by git repos and a separate chat group.
• The review panel is very helpful to check the plan or suggested changes.
• Copilot CLI sessions can optionally be shown in GH Copilot Desktop App, that's useful, too.

Improvement ideas

• Context size not visible: The card with the input field, and several other session status details, lack details about the context. Hovering on the circle icon near the send button should not only show the session's AI credits and the consumed percentage of the plan, but also context size and other token consumption-related details. It's tedious to call /context command repeatedly. In addition, there should be some additional visualization of the context window size in percent near the plan consumption circle.
• Missing diagram/image support: The rendered conversation is not able to present diagrams or images (in contrast to e.g. Claude Desktop App). It would be great if SVG, PNG images and diagrams created with PlantUML/Mermaid or some chart frameworks could be created on demand and rendered in the chat, e.g. for architectural overviews, networks, dependency graphs, etc.
• Images as inputs: It would be helpful if images (or even short videos) could be used as input (similar to Gemini), e.g. with screenshots of apps with unexpected layouts, error messages, any unexpected behavior, or sketches of what to implement.
• Interact with IDEs: I'd like to keep the GH Copilot Desktop App as a stand-alone client, but give its agents the ability to reach into a running IDE (VSCode, IntelliJ, Eclipse) — via MCP servers or IDE APIs — and act the way developers would in the IDE, i.e.:
  • read errors, warnings, issues produced by the IDE (including those from various extensions / plug-ins like SonarQube, Spring plug-ins, etc.),
  • use the IDE's full language support (via LSP?): searching references, call/type hierarchies, performing refactorings, etc.
  • use the IDE's support for build tools and for ecosystem-dependent files like MANIFEST.MF or plugin.xml in Eclipse plug-in development (PDE)
  • trigger IDE actions: for example, debug running applications, set breakpoints, and check field values at runtime
  • "see" the running application's UI (e.g. check layout / rendering so that it can be improved)
  • Letting agents work with the IDE like developers would make the agents more capable, their results more deterministic, less error-prone (e.g. IDE refactorings beat grep-and-replace via CLI), and would let them consume fewer tokens
• UI/UX improvements
  • Session-attached files difficult to access: Opening review panel, pressing "+" and selecting "Files" only shows files in the workspace. You have to press Ctrl + P and scroll down to find session-attached files, i.e. files in your session's folder "files". Such files would be much more helpful if they were easier to access.
  • Buggy Markdown parser / renderer: If fenced code blocks are in a Markdown file, everything after a fenced code block is rendered as if it were part of the code block.
  • Session grouping by tasks/projects: I often work on multiple related git repos at once to complete some task spanning over multiple repos. It would be great to group sessions based on tasks or projects (potentially spanning multiple git repos) rather than on git repos only.
  • Review panel on other screen: The review panel (with the plan.md, diffs, session-attached files, etc.) demands a lot of space on a screen. It would be great if it could be placed in a separate window on another screen.
  • Thinking output collapsed: I'd prefer seeing the thinking output while it is streamed. It might be a good idea to automatically collapse a thinking block as soon as the thinking output streaming completes.
  • File icons: Instead of using different icons for different file extensions, I'd prefer using different icons for different kinds of file access, e.g. read, write, maybe even depending on various tool calls used to access the files.

[voyager163]

I work on multiple azure tenant for different projects. As Github Copilot app is dependent on the az login. It is always lock to one specific az tenant. I have to switch non-stop. It will be good that you can set azure tenant and subscription configuration for each project.

[scottchanman]

I like how the app creates branch names but its not usable for our enterprise. For our large enterprise we have branch naming rules and we are not using worktrees. I tried to name a branch to go along with our rules and its not usable for our rule sets. If we want to be able to work from the app we need to be able to create the branch in this format: users/joesmith/20260729_PE-330 the Jira ticket number is after the date.
Let me know if I'm missing anything or if I'm misinformed.