Startup
GitHub Copilot coding agent
GitHub's background agent that takes delegated tasks and opens pull requests.
Copilot coding agent (now part of the broader Copilot in the cloud experience) researches a repository, plans changes, edits files and runs tests and linters in the background, then opens a pull request. Sessions can run in a GitHub Actions-based environment (custom compute, network and setup config, self-hosted runners) or in cloud sandboxes that can span repositories. It is customisable with custom instructions, custom agents and skills, MCP servers and hooks; Actions-based sessions are capped at 59 minutes and each task targets one branch and one PR.
In research (6)
- Agent or Human? Detecting Commits by AI Coding Agents in the Absence of Authorship SignaturesVerdict: Useful
Oct 26, 2026 · A studied agent, identified via the Copilot author account. Its detectability drifts as its squash-merge template usage changes.
- Testing with Coding Agents: A Large-Scale Comparison of Agent-Supported and Human-Authored Pull RequestsVerdict: Useful
Oct 26, 2026 · The Copilot coding agent is one of the studied agents (5,764 PRs).
Oct 26, 2026 · Agent-opened PRs at GitHub scale motivate the study.
- Do AI Coding Agents Write Infrastructure as Code Like Humans? An Empirical Study of GitHub Pull RequestsVerdict: Useful
Oct 25, 2026 · GitHub Copilot's agent is among the studied agents.
- Large-Scale Study of GitHub Copilot TrajectoriesVerdict: Useful
Oct 23, 2026 · The study analyzes 7,581 PRs authored by GitHub's Copilot coding agent.
- VeeReview: Measuring Build-Verify Pairs in Agent-Authored Pull Requests from a V-Model PerspectiveVerdict: Useful
Oct 21, 2026 · GitHub Copilot agent PRs are part of the AIDev cohort.
Neighbours in the directory
San Francisco, CA · Est. 2023
Devin, the AI software engineer, and the Windsurf IDE.
Cognition builds Devin, an autonomous AI software engineer that plans and executes engineering tasks end-to-end, and acquired the Windsurf agentic IDE in 2025. One of the defining startups of the coding-agent wave.
~$10.2B valuation (Sep 2025)
San Francisco, CA · Est. 2022
The AI-native code editor where agent mode lives.
Cursor rebuilt the IDE around models: tab completion, in-editor chat and agent mode that plans multi-file edits and runs commands. Its rise set the pace for the entire coding-agent market.
~$29B valuation (late 2025)
San Francisco, CA · Est. 2023
Droids: AI workers for software teams.
Factory's 'droids' take engineering tickets from issue to pull request, with sandboxed environments and enterprise controls — agents as members of the dev workflow.
Connections
Relations from the Harness Hub knowledge graph, as charted in the State of Harness reports.
Sources
Verified Oct 29, 2026