GitHub Copilot is the AI coding assistant from GitHub that offers code suggestions, chat, agent mode in the editor and a cloud agent that works on repository tasks and opens pull requests. It first appeared as a technical preview in 2021, became generally available to individual developers on 21 June 2022, and now spans IDE extensions, GitHub.com, GitHub Mobile, a command line tool, a desktop app and integrations with chat and ticketing tools. This page sets out the plans and AI credit allowances, the models offered, the features and modes, supported editors, admin controls, data handling and a dated release history, all from GitHub's own documentation and blog. It is written for developers, engineering managers and platform owners deciding how to roll Copilot out. Last checked: 2026-11-15.
This is an independent guide from NHI Mgmt Group, based on GitHub's public documentation as of November 2026. It is not sponsored or reviewed by GitHub. Product features change, so confirm settings against GitHub's current documentation.
Key takeaways
- Seven plans plus a metered option: Copilot Free, Student, Pro ($10), Pro+ ($39) and Max ($100) for individuals, Business ($19 per seat) and Enterprise ($39 per seat) for organisations, and a "Copilot access" option billed by usage from first use.
- AI credits are the usage unit: paid plans include a monthly allowance of GitHub AI Credits (for example 1,500 on Pro and a pooled 1,900 per user on Business), with organisation overage at $0.01 USD per credit.
- Several model providers: the supported models list includes models from Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, Moonshot AI, OpenAI and xAI, while Free and Student users get models through auto model selection only.
- Two kinds of agent: agent mode runs inside the IDE and proposes edits and terminal commands for approval, while the cloud agent works in an ephemeral GitHub Actions environment, on one branch, and produces one pull request.
- Admin controls sit with Business and Enterprise: policy management, access management, usage data, audit logs and content exclusion are organisation features, and content exclusion does not apply in Edit and Agent modes.
What is GitHub Copilot?
GitHub's documentation groups Copilot into three kinds of capability. Assistive features give synchronous help: Copilot Chat, inline suggestions (including next edit suggestions), pull request summaries and commit message drafting in GitHub Desktop. Agentic features can work on their own, with approval for sensitive actions: the Copilot CLI, the GitHub Copilot app, the Copilot cloud agent (formerly described as the coding agent), third-party coding agents (public preview), Copilot code review and agent mode in IDEs. Customisation features shape what Copilot knows and does: Copilot Spaces, custom instructions, Copilot Memory (public preview), prompt files, MCP servers, agent skills and custom agents.
Copilot is owned by GitHub, a Microsoft subsidiary. It runs as a hosted service: suggestions and chat responses are produced by models GitHub serves, and the extensions in each editor call that service. The same GitHub account, plan and organisation policies apply across every surface, so a policy set by an organisation owner on GitHub.com affects what a member sees in VS Code, JetBrains or the CLI.
Key facts at a glance
As of 15 November 2026, from GitHub documentation and blog posts.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Owner | GitHub (Microsoft) |
| First release | Technical preview in 2021; general availability for individuals on 21 June 2022 |
| Status | Generally available; some features in public preview (for example Copilot Memory and third-party coding agents) |
| Surfaces | IDE extensions, GitHub.com, GitHub Mobile, Copilot CLI, GitHub Copilot app, GitHub Desktop, Windows Terminal, Slack and Microsoft Teams |
| Licence | Proprietary hosted service, sold by subscription |
| Model providers | Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, Moonshot AI, OpenAI, xAI |
| Free tier | Copilot Free: 2,000 inline completions per month, Chat on GitHub.com and Mobile, auto model selection |
| Individual paid plans | Pro $10, Pro+ $39, Max $100 per month (USD) |
| Organisation plans | Business $19 and Enterprise $39 per granted seat per month (USD); Copilot access $0 with a GitHub Enterprise Cloud licence or $10 standalone, plus metered usage |
| Usage unit | GitHub AI Credits |
| Official links | github.com/features/copilot, docs.github.com/en/copilot |
Plans and pricing
Prices are in USD per month as listed on GitHub's plans page on 15 November 2026. GitHub describes allowances in AI credits, split into base and flex credits for individual plans and pooled per user for organisation plans.
| Plan | Price | Monthly AI credits | Intended for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Copilot Free | $0 | Allowance not stated as a number | Individuals without Copilot through an organisation; 2,000 inline completions per month |
| Copilot Student | $0 | Allowance not stated as a number | Verified students; auto model selection, no third-party agents |
| Copilot Pro | $10 (free for some verified teachers and open source maintainers) | 1,000 base + 500 flex = 1,500 | Individuals wanting a choice of models and Copilot in the cloud |
| Copilot Pro+ | $39 | 3,900 base + 3,100 flex = 7,000 | Power users; adds premium models |
| Copilot Max | $100 | 10,000 base + 10,000 flex = 20,000 | Sustained high-volume use; priority access to premium models |
| Copilot Business | $19 per granted seat | 1,900 per user, pooled; $0.01 per credit beyond the pool | Organisations needing central management and policy control |
| Copilot Enterprise | $39 per granted seat | 3,900 per user, pooled; $0.01 per credit beyond the pool | Enterprises on GitHub Enterprise Cloud |
| Copilot access | $0 per seat with a GitHub Enterprise Cloud licence, $10 standalone | None included; metered from first use | Eligible enterprises; same feature and model eligibility as Enterprise |
- Availability note: GitHub states that Copilot access cannot be combined with Business or Enterprise seats in the same enterprise and cannot be used with GitHub Enterprise Server. The Copilot changelog for 28 October 2026 announced that GitHub Enterprise now includes access to Copilot.
- Cloud agent costs: cloud agent sessions consume GitHub Actions minutes as well as AI credits, and Copilot code review also uses Actions minutes on private repositories.
- Historic price: at general availability in June 2022 the individual plan cost $10 per month or $100 per year. The current plans page lists monthly prices only.
Models available
GitHub's supported models page lists the models below as generally available on 15 November 2026. GitHub notes that evaluation models may appear under codenames and can be added or removed without notice, and that availability varies by plan (the per-plan grid is on the same page). Copilot Free and Copilot Student users get models through auto model selection only.
| Provider | Models listed (as of 15 November 2026) |
|---|---|
| Anthropic | Claude Fable 5, Claude Fable 5.1, Claude Haiku 4.5, Claude Haiku 5.5, Claude Opus 4.8, Claude Opus 5, Claude Opus 5.5, Claude Sonnet 5, Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Gemini 3.8 Flash, Gemini 4 Argon | |
| Microsoft | MAI-Code-1.1-Flash |
| Moonshot AI | Kimi K3 |
| OpenAI | GPT-5.3-Codex, GPT-5.4 nano (Codex VS Code extension, Pro+ only), GPT-5.6 Luna, Sol and Terra, GPT-6 Astra, Luna and Sol, GPT-6.1 Sol and Terra |
| xAI | Grok 4.5, Grok 4.6, Grok 4.7 |
The changelog announced further additions in November 2026 (Claude Fable 5.2 on 9 November, Gemini 4 Carbon on 10 November and Gemini 4 Hydrogen on 13 November) and an upcoming deprecation of selected models in December. Retirements are frequent: the supported models page lists retirement dates of 1 September, 2 October and 19 October 2026 among others, so pin no workflow to a single model name. The plans page footnote also records that Anthropic may retain data for Claude Fable 5, 5.1 and 5.2 by default, with a time-bound option for customers to request zero data retention through the end of 2026.
Features and modes
- Inline suggestions: autocomplete-style suggestions in the editor. Next edit suggestions predict the location of the next change and propose it.
- Copilot Chat: questions and answers about code on GitHub.com, GitHub Mobile, supported IDEs and Windows Terminal.
- Edit mode and agent mode: in the IDE, agent mode decides which files to edit, proposes code changes and terminal commands for approval, and iterates until the task is done. The feature matrix lists checkpoints in VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains and Xcode.
- Copilot cloud agent: researches a repository, plans and commits changes to a branch in its own ephemeral environment powered by GitHub Actions, where it can run tests and linters. Tasks start from the agents panel, an assigned issue, VS Code, an
@copilotmention on a pull request, scheduled or event automations, or integrations with Azure Boards, Jira, Linear, Microsoft Teams and Slack. Each session has a hard limit of 59 minutes. - Copilot CLI and the Copilot app: the CLI works on features and fixes from the terminal and can open a pull request; sessions can continue on GitHub.com or mobile. The desktop app runs parallel agent sessions across repositories, manages issues and pull requests and schedules automations.
- Copilot code review: AI review suggestions on pull requests, with some tools in public preview.
- Context and customisation: Copilot Spaces (curated collections of code and documents), custom instructions, prompt files stored in the workspace, agent skills, custom agents with defined tools and MCP servers, and Copilot Memory (public preview) for repository knowledge used by the cloud agent and code review.
- MCP: Model Context Protocol servers connect Copilot to external tools and data. See the MCP Security Guide.
Supported IDEs and platforms
GitHub's feature matrix (a public preview page) compares six editors at the extension versions it lists: VS Code 1.108.0, Visual Studio 18.6.0, JetBrains 1.5.66, Eclipse 0.14.0, Xcode 0.46.0 and Neovim 1.18.0. "Preview" means the feature is in preview in that editor. In Neovim the matrix lists code completion.
| Feature | VS Code | Visual Studio | JetBrains | Eclipse | Xcode |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Code completion | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Chat | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Agent mode | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| MCP | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Next edit suggestions | Yes | Yes | Preview | Preview | Preview |
| Custom instructions | Yes | Yes | Preview | Preview | Preview |
| Bring your own key (BYOK) | Preview | Yes | Preview | Preview | Preview |
Beyond the matrix, Copilot is available on GitHub.com, GitHub Mobile, Windows Terminal, GitHub Desktop and the Copilot CLI. The changelog recorded Copilot in Xcode's coding assistant on 4 November 2026 and in JetBrains Air on 3 November 2026. Content exclusion documentation also lists Vim and Azure Data Studio among supported clients.
Choosing a surface depends on where the work runs. Inline suggestions, Chat and agent mode run in the developer's editor with each change visible as it happens. The cloud agent and automations run on GitHub-hosted infrastructure against a repository, so review happens on the pull request, and repository rules and policies carry the control. The CLI and the Copilot app sit between the two: local sessions that can hand work to GitHub.com.
Enterprise and admin controls
GitHub lists these as Business and Enterprise plan features:
- Policy management: enable or disable features and models at organisation or enterprise level. The cloud agent must be enabled by policy before Business and Enterprise members can use it.
- Access management: enterprise owners choose which organisations get Copilot; organisation owners choose which members get seats. The 10 November 2026 changelog added GitHub App support for enterprise seat management.
- Usage data and metrics API: activity reports to guide seat decisions, extended in November 2026 with code review details and telemetry gap flags.
- Audit logs: an enterprise-level record of Copilot actions and the users who took them.
- Content exclusion: repository administrators, organisation owners and enterprise owners can tell Copilot to ignore files. Excluded files get no inline suggestions, do not inform other responses and are skipped in code review.
- Repository rules: rulesets that conflict with the cloud agent can block it, and rulesets can add Copilot as a bypass actor.
Data handling and privacy
- Content exclusion limits: GitHub states that content exclusion is not supported in Edit and Agent modes of Copilot Chat, that Copilot may still use semantic information an IDE supplies from excluded files (such as type information or hover definitions), and that exclusions do not apply to symbolic links or repositories on remote filesystems.
- Cloud agent scope: changes are limited to the repository named at the start of the task, context is limited to that repository by default (wider access is configured through MCP settings), and every step is recorded in commits and logs.
- Third-party model retention: see the plans page footnote above on Anthropic retention for Claude Fable models.
- Policy documents: training use, prompt retention and indemnity terms are set out in the GitHub Trust Center and the product terms for each plan; check them for the plan you buy.
Release history
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 2021 | Technical preview; GitHub reported more than 1.2 million developers joined in the first 12 months |
| 21 June 2022 | General availability for individual developers at $10 per month or $100 per year |
| 14 February 2023 | Copilot for Business available to teams and organisations, with filtering of common insecure suggestions such as hardcoded credentials |
| 18 December 2024 | Copilot Free launched in VS Code: 2,000 code completions and 50 chat messages per month, with a choice of Claude 3.5 Sonnet or GPT-4o |
| 7 October 2026 | Local sandboxing for Copilot generally available |
| 28 October 2026 | Universe releases: GitHub Copilot app, Copilot Fusion model routing, Copilot Automations, GitHub Agentic Workflows generally available, GitHub Enterprise includes Copilot access |
| 4 to 13 November 2026 | Copilot in Xcode's coding assistant, @GitHub in Slack and Teams generally available, Claude Fable 5.2 and Gemini 4 Carbon and Hydrogen added, GitHub Enterprise Server support in the Copilot app |
Limits and known constraints
- Cloud agent: 59-minute hard limit per session (can be shortened, not extended); GitHub-hosted repositories only; one branch and one pull request per task; not available in repositories owned by managed user accounts.
- Free and Student: auto model selection only; Free code review limited to "Review selection" in VS Code.
- Content exclusion: not applied in Edit and Agent modes; public preview on GitHub.com and Mobile.
- Model churn: models are added and retired on short notice; the supported models page lists more than a dozen retirement dates in 2026.
- Copilot access: no included credits, and not usable with GitHub Enterprise Server.
Security guidance
Identity, access, token and logging hardening for Copilot is covered in the GitHub Copilot Security Guide. For the wider editor and agent risk picture, see the AI IDE and Coding Agent Security Guide, and for tokens that end up in prompts and config files, see the AI Coding Tools Secrets Sprawl Guide.
Practitioner checklist
- Choose the plan by who manages it: individual plans for personal accounts, Business or Enterprise where you need policies, audit logs and content exclusion.
- Model AI credit consumption before rollout, including pooled overage at $0.01 per credit and the Actions minutes the cloud agent uses.
- Set organisation policies for models, the cloud agent, third-party agents and MCP before assigning seats.
- Configure content exclusion for sensitive paths, and remember it does not cover Edit and Agent modes.
- Review repository rulesets so the cloud agent works only where you intend, and decide whether Copilot should be a bypass actor.
- Track the supported models page and changelog monthly for retirements that affect custom agents or automations.
- Stream Copilot audit log events into your logging platform and review seat usage through the metrics API.
- Check the product terms and Trust Center for training, retention and third-party model terms for your plan.
Standards and references
- GitHub Docs: Plans for GitHub Copilot
- GitHub Docs: Supported AI models in GitHub Copilot
- GitHub Docs: GitHub Copilot features
- GitHub Docs: Copilot feature matrix
- GitHub Docs: About Copilot cloud agent
- GitHub Docs: Content exclusion for GitHub Copilot
- GitHub Changelog: Copilot
- GitHub Blog: GitHub Copilot is generally available to all developers
Related NHI Mgmt Group resources: GitHub Copilot Security Guide, AI IDE and Coding Agent Security Guide, MCP Security Guide, How to audit AI coding assistant tokens and config files.