GitHub Copilot - The Complete Guide - 2026

Explore GitHub Copilot chat features like code completions, explain, review, fix, and docs, and learn to generate unit tests using a React TypeScript example as a learning tool.

Discover how to use GitHub Copilot chat in VS Code, customize its position, manage context with files or selections, switch between ask, edit, and agent modes, and enable voice chat.

Interact with Copilot chat inside files using the cursor-based commands, edit modes, and save/undo workflows, then manage context with participants, slash commands, and tools including fetch for up-to-date web content.

Explore how GitHub Copilot's completions act as an advanced autocomplete system, using ghost text, function-name cues, and options like snooze and panel views to tailor your coding context.

Explore GitHub Copilot's explain, review, fix, and document features, learn to invoke explanations from an active selection, review and fix code, and generate professional documentation.

GitHub Copilot guides testing setup with vitest in a TypeScript project, generates and runs tests, and highlights trial-and-error challenges with mocks and edge cases.

Learn with GitHub Copilot by using chat and quiz modes to practice Python string manipulation, regular expressions, and file-context explanations across CSS, TypeScript, and gitignore.

GitHub Copilot reads images to extract text and apply color themes, enabling you to drag in files, generate md or html content, and automatically style css across a project.

Master prompt engineering by crafting concise instructions and providing context from your open files and workspace to guide Copilot; be specific, iterate, and use planning mode.

Explore how GitHub Copilot interfaces with large language models for coding, driven by tokens and context size. Understand prompts, input and output, and the OpenAI tokenizer.

Understand how a chat ai receives prompts, code context, chat history, system instructions, and tool definitions in GitHub Copilot, and how the context window and token limits shape responses.

Explore advanced configuration options in GitHub Copilot, including prompt responses, chat modes, and standardizing settings across teams. Leverage agent mode to build complex apps in seconds or minutes.

Learn to standardize Copilot responses with a Copilot instructions markdown file inside a GitHub folder, tailoring behavior by language such as TypeScript and enabling project-wide guidelines.

Configure GitHub Copilot actions to tailor commit messages, code reviews, and test generation using VSCode settings.json and a guidance folder with review guidelines markdown.

Learn how to build custom agents in GitHub Copilot, extend chat modes, and use web-based documentation to answer questions with up-to-date Playwright and other framework details.

Explore agent mode in GitHub Copilot and quickly build a snake game in a React and TypeScript project with Vite.

Explore how the model context protocol enables secure, standardized connections and real actions via an MCP server, extending GitHub Copilot beyond static suggestions.

Install an MCP server supported by VS Code from the extensions view, then authenticate to GitHub and use GitHub Copilot chat to create branches, readmes, commits, and pull requests.

install an mcp server in vscode by adding an npm package, creating an mcp.json, and registering it for use with GitHub Copilot; then use the Airbnb tools to search listings.

The lecture demonstrates using the MCP, or model context protocol, server to generate daily task lists from a single prompt file, tracking pull requests and issues assigned to me.

Explore programming basics with GitHub Copilot as you build a password checker in JavaScript with Node.js, Python, or Java, learn about regular expressions, and auto-generate docs, commits, and tests.

Explore how GitHub Copilot assists JavaScript and TypeScript development by generating logic and unit tests for a password checker, then build an Express-based app with TypeScript lists practice.

See how GitHub Copilot accelerates JavaScript development by building a password checker, using type checks and regular expressions, throwing errors, and generating documentation.

Discover how GitHub Copilot helps write unit tests with the Node.js built-in test module, compare options like jest and mocha, create and run tests with npm, and note Copilot limitations.

Rewrite the regular expression to disallow the exclamation mark and update the password checker tests. Use GitHub Copilot prompts to generate and verify the new test cases.

Explore how GitHub Copilot assists TypeScript development, from initializing an npm project and installing TypeScript to generating a type employee, email template literals, and a gitignore.

Explore using GitHub Copilot to build and test a TypeScript list of employees, including interfaces, sample data, and functions like get by name, filter by salary, map, and reduce.

Install and configure MySQL, create databases, and test connections with VS Code's SQL Tools extension. Learn to locate the port (often 3306) and set up a connection named Cool Connection.

Build a backend express and sql application by creating a simple employee rest API that talks to a database, enabling viewing and adding employees via HTTP requests with GitHub Copilot.

Initialize an express backend by creating an npm project, adding a .gitignore, installing express (express five beta), TypeScript, ts-node, types for node and express, and mysql2, then run tsc --init.

Set up a database connection and create an employees table with id, last name, first name, hire date, and position using a MySQL driver in a TypeScript project.

Explore how GitHub Copilot assists with writing SQL queries in TypeScript, define a model folder and employee type, and implement CRUD operations and routes.

Build a scalable express application server in TypeScript with a server class and a /api/employee/hello endpoint on port 3000. Verify functionality using a REST client and GitHub Copilot suggestions.

Finish the app by introducing an express controller between the router and repository, handling get, add, update, and delete employee operations and wiring routes to the database.

Test the app built with GitHub Copilot by validating endpoints for employees, including get all, get by id, post add, put update, and delete, using npm start and requests.http.

Wrap up this section by reflecting on our work with JavaScript, TypeScript, and GitHub Copilot to build applications, noting Copilot's stronger performance with Express and TypeScript.

Explore Copilot for Python development as you build a password checker, generate logic and unit tests, and practice lists and data visualization with matplotlib, guided by VS Code setup.

Discover how GitHub Copilot helps build a Python password checker, implementing validate_password variants and checks for length, case, digits, and special characters. Explore inline chat, regex validation, and error messages.

See how GitHub Copilot generates text and documentation inside code, producing faithful, context-aware docs for different functions. It also offers meaningful commit messages, showcased directly in VS Code.

Observe how GitHub Copilot guides you through creating a Python unit test setup, offering pytest or doctest options, generating a starter test file, and validating a password checker.

Generate tests for a password checker, validating length, uppercase and lowercase rules, digits, and a special character, while exploring how GitHub Copilot assists in creating and refining tests.

See how GitHub Copilot assists with lists in Python, generating sample employee data and simple functions. Build utilities to get names, max salary, and salary-based filters.

Learn how to set up Python virtual environments with venv, manage dependencies via requirements.txt, and install matplotlib for data visualization, guided by GitHub Copilot.

Explore how GitHub Copilot supports data visualization in Python with matplotlib and numpy, crafting cosinus and sinus plots, dashed lines, world population visuals, and a programming languages pie chart.

Explore how GitHub Copilot assists Java development, guiding you through a password checker app, list practice, and a spring backend with an SQL database, via VS Code and Java tooling.

Set up a Java maven project from the command line with GitHub Copilot, configure JUnit 5 dependencies and Java version, and ignore the target folder with gitignore.

See how GitHub Copilot aids Java coding by building a password checker with length, numeric, lowercase, and uppercase checks, an invalid password exception, and Copilot's explain and doc features.

Generate unit tests for Java with GitHub Copilot, move test files, fix imports, set up before-each to reduce duplication, and run mvn test for a working password checker.

Explore Java lists with GitHub Copilot as you build an employee class, a list of employees, and methods using getters, streams, sorting by age and salary, plus generating tests.

Learn how to install and configure MySQL for the course's advanced projects, create and connect to a database, and use VS Code SQL Tools to test connections.

Explore building a more advanced spring application with a simple employee manager system backed by MySQL, and learn how GitHub Copilot can summarize routes and assist with HTTP operations.

Initialize a Spring Boot project with Spring Initializer, using Maven and Java 17, add Spring Web, Spring Data JPA, MySQL driver, and configure the data source URL in application properties.

Build a spring rest application by defining an employee model and an employee controller. Implement repository and service layers to support a get mapping and fetch all employees.

Build a Spring Data JPA repository with a service layer to perform CRUD on employees, exposing REST endpoints for get by id, by position, add, update, and delete.

Test the application by adding employees via post, retrieving by position, updating roles to senior software engineer, and deleting records to verify http json crud.

Explore advanced unit testing for spring applications by mocking repositories and services with Mockito, and using MockMvc to simulate HTTP requests, guided by GitHub Copilot.

Build a simple React app to visualize company employees, explore components, hooks, and routing, and experience GitHub Copilot guiding front-end development, including add and view employee details.

Initialize a React project with vite, install dependencies, and run dev; structure folders for components and services, and configure routing to build home, list employees, add employee, and employee details.

Configure routing in a React app with react-router-dom, using a browser router and routes for home, add employee, list employee, and employee details (with id), tested via npm run dev.

Configure the back end with an in-memory repository to avoid a real SQL database. Use GitHub Copilot to generate the class, then start the app and test endpoints.

Create a data form to add employees to the database using a TypeScript employee model. The form sends a backend post request with first name, last name, and position.

Enable browser access by configuring cors on the server: install cors, apply router.use(cors({ origin: '*', methods: '*' })), update the base URL to /add.

Fetch a list of employees from the server and display them in a table with first name, last name, hire date, and position.

Extend the app with an employee details component that fetches employee data and biography from the server using the id from the route, with Copilot-assisted coding and 404 handling.

This lecture adds navigation to the employee app, introducing back and details buttons, a details link for each employee, and a list and add flow using React Router Dom links.