# GitHub Copilot CLI GitHub Copilot CLI is [[GitHub]]'s terminal-native [[AI Agent Harness|agentic coding agent]], the CLI surface of [[GitHub Copilot]]. It went public preview in September 2025 and reached general availability in February 2026, positioning it as Microsoft/GitHub's direct answer to [[Claude Code]], [[Gemini CLI]], and [[Kimi CLI]]. It's a full agentic development environment in the terminal — plans, builds, reviews, and remembers across sessions without leaving the shell. ## Modes - **Plan mode** (`Shift+Tab`) — analyzes the request, asks clarifying questions, produces a structured implementation plan before writing code - **Autopilot mode** — fully autonomous execution; runs tools and commands without per-step approval - **Interactive mode** — default conversational loop with approval prompts ## Sub-agent Delegation Copilot CLI automatically delegates to specialized sub-agents and runs multiple in parallel: - **Explore** — fast codebase analysis - **Task** — running builds and tests - **Code Review** — high-signal change review - **Plan** — implementation planning ## Models Multi-model routing across the latest from [[Anthropic]], [[OpenAI]], and Google: Claude Opus 4.6, Sonnet 4.6, Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.3-Codex, Gemini 3 Pro. Users can pick per task or let Copilot auto-route. ## Extensibility - Built-in GitHub [[Model Context Protocol (MCP)|MCP]] server out of the box - Custom MCP server support: `/mcp add|show|edit|disable|delete` (config in `~/.copilot/mcp-config.json`, overridable per project), plus experimental `/mcp search` which queries the GitHub MCP Registry, or the enterprise-configured private registry (see [[GitHub Copilot MCP Registry]]) - Plugins installable directly from GitHub repositories - Shares the same agent runtime as [[GitHub Copilot SDK]] — same execution loop, exposed programmatically ## Sandboxing Two isolation modes, both public preview (see [[GitHub Copilot Sandboxing]]): **local sandboxing** (`--experimental`) wraps agent commands in an OS-level, deny-by-default sandbox powered by [[Microsoft eXecution Container (MXC)]] (Seatbelt/Bubblewrap/ProcessContainer), inspectable via `/sandbox policy`; **cloud sandboxing** (`--cloud --experimental`) runs the whole session in an ephemeral GitHub-hosted Linux VM with resumable snapshots. Enterprises can enforce a minimum sandbox policy via [[GitHub Copilot Managed Settings]]. ## Positioning vs Peers Same agentic coding terminal category as [[Claude Code]], [[Gemini CLI]], [[Kimi CLI]], and [[OpenAI Codex]]. Differentiation: - **Distribution** — bundled with existing Copilot subscriptions; no separate billing - **GitHub integration** — first-class Issues, PRs, Actions, repo access - **Multi-provider** — not locked to a single model vendor (unlike Claude Code or Gemini CLI) ## References - Documentation: https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/concepts/agents/about-copilot-cli - Source code: https://github.com/github/copilot-cli - Features page: https://github.com/features/copilot/cli - GA announcement: https://github.blog/changelog/2026-02-25-github-copilot-cli-is-now-generally-available/ - Agentic workflows blog: https://github.blog/ai-and-ml/github-copilot/power-agentic-workflows-in-your-terminal-with-github-copilot-cli/ - Beginners guide: https://github.blog/ai-and-ml/github-copilot/github-copilot-cli-for-beginners-getting-started-with-github-copilot-cli/ - Preview announcement: https://github.blog/changelog/2025-09-25-github-copilot-cli-is-now-in-public-preview - Overview by [[Simon Willison]]: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Sep/25/github-copilot-cli ## Related - [[GitHub Copilot]] - [[GitHub Copilot App]] - [[GitHub Copilot SDK]] - [[GitHub]] - [[Claude Code]] - [[Gemini CLI]] - [[Kimi CLI]] - [[OpenAI Codex]] - [[AI Agent Harness]] - [[AI Agents]] - [[Model Context Protocol (MCP)]] - [[GitHub Copilot Sandboxing]] - [[Microsoft eXecution Container (MXC)]] - [[GitHub Copilot Managed Settings]] - [[GitHub Copilot MCP Registry]] - [[Awesome GitHub Copilot]]