GitHub Copilot evolves into autonomous agent with asynchronous code testing

Microsoft’s hit AI programming tool GitHub Copilot wants to move away from simply helping people complete code and as of today, will allow for users to set up asynchronous code testing.

The move brings GitHub Copilot to work more autonomously for developers, keeping the app competitive as the AI coding assistant space has become more crowded with AI-powered tools, including Microsoft investment OpenAI’s rival Codex software engineering agent released Friday.

GitHub Copilot Agent, first announced as Project Padawan back in February, will check, test and iterate code. When invoked, Copilot Agent can navigate the repo, edit files, run commands and open pull requests. 

Mario Rodriguez, chief product officer at GitHub, told VentureBeat that GitHub Copilot Agent could open developers up to focus on other tasks while ensuring any previous code they wrote works. 

“I could go into an issue, and before, I needed to go back into my ...