Late to agentic coding? Don't panic, build. | DEM303

Key Takeaways

All right, the floor is all yours. >> Thank you. Hey everybody, how you doing? >> Hi. >> So, we're going to This is going to be a fairly interactive session, hopefully. If we can If we get it good. So, if you want to get your phones out, uh this QR code here, um we want your ideas because we basically uh we're working on the keynote all day and then we wanted to make sure we actually do some stuff. So, we're going to build some stuff live while also trying to educate you. >> So, gh.io/dem303/idea if you don't get the QR code. You can go straight to that URL. >> I'm afraid you'll have to log in with GitHub on your phone, which is the first sort of test of the day. But, it's good cuz that will boost my numbers in terms of uh getting people to log on, so that's good. Um so, my name's Martin Woodward and >> I'm Cassidy Williams. >> And what we're going to do is going to go through uh talk about using um GitHub Copilot, doing agentic coding and kind of, you know, see how that goes. Um we're going to get some ideas from you now and we're going to kick something off building and then we'll do some talking and then we'll build some more and do some talking is what we're thinking about doing. Before we get started, can I have a quick show of hands? Who here is currently uh using GitHub Copilot, for example? Okay? >> Thank goodness. Okay. [laughter] >> Who's using uh say agent mode Who's using it within VS Code mostly? >> VS Code mostly? >> Okay. >> Okay. >> Who uses the >> Visual Studio, I heard as well. >> Visual Studio mostly? >> Okay. >> Sweet. Uh command line? >> Okay. >> And then anyone use the GitHub app yet that got talked about today? >> It was very new. >> Oh, yeah. We got one person. >> Yeah, thanks, bud. >> [laughter] >> Cool. And then what about through the web? Uh through like the coding agent? >> Like github.com/copilot, any of those things? We got a couple, okay. >> And then code review, built-in code review within github.com? >> Code review, handful. >> That's interesting tonight. Cool. >> Yeah. >> Right. So, let's go and have a look. If you go there, um >> Going to switch over to >> is the repo that we're all in. >> It is not showing it. I think you have to stop the presentation. >> Hang on a second. Of course they Give me 1 sec. >> We're professionals, people. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. So, if we go to the repo, this is the repo that we're working on. All of the stuff from this repo, including where to get more information, tools you should install, and things like that, that's all here for you as well. But, hopefully, we'll have some issues where we got some Hi. >> a issue. >> an issue. Let's go Let's go in and have a look. >> Cool. I don't know what that means. >> Yeah. We can We can try and collect some ideas. How about we do that? Do you want to do that? >> Sure. >> Uh so, this is the GitHub Copilot app that I'm showing you here. Let me show you in light mode just to uh make it more visible for you. >> he while he pulls it up and switches it into light mode, the app is built on top of the GitHub Copilot CLI. It's using all the SDKs and stuff, and so it's the exact same engine on your machine that's powering all the sessions and everything that's going. And so, you can kick off a session. >> Yeah, we'll kick off a session. So, what I'm going to do is later What I'm going to do here Let's make this bigger for you so you can see it. Is create some issues for me. Uh for ideas on what to build. Uh Uh >> You got to use voice-to-text. >> Oh, can I do Is it Control H is it? >> Yeah, it's Command H or Windows H. >> H. Here we go. Let's see if this works. Okay, I can't remember what that is. Doesn't matter. Right. Create some issues for me on ideas what to build. Um Uh one pillar Right. Okay, let's Somebody shout out. What would you like to see us build? Anyone? >> What did you say? You He just added one, so we've got something coming in. >> Ooh, for whiskey. >> Review whiskey. >> Whiskey review app. >> That's a fun one. IPA review app, okay. People This is the end of the day. I suppose it's 5:00 p.m. >> Uh, we're going to have a game. So, let's do face controlled uh, breakout. >> We could do We could do more gesture things, too. Did you like the thumbs up, thumbs down thing earlier? We could do that. >> Uh, let's do a gesture controlled uh, ping pong. >> Oh, that's fun. >> Anyone else got an idea? We'll just get a couple, and then we're going to do some finishing work. >> Side scrolling platformer game. >> Okay. Anybody else? Cool. That'll do. >> That'll do. Okay. >> So, that's going to go create some issues for us now. While it's doing that, let's just get up on Let's just start this. >> We're going to do our presentation. >> There we go. So, as you know, as you saw in the keynote, we know it's uh, um, genetic coding's really kicking off, and we're seeing massive, massive growth. But, if you uh, and then, you know, as we look, we're actually seeing the number of pull requests coming from agents going through the roof, as well. Um, if you look around the industry, I mean, I'm old, you're not as old, but you've been around. >> [laughter] >> And uh, >> Thanks, Martin. >> Experience. Yeah. But, it's um, uh, it's it's the I've never seen like the last time I saw anything approaching this was during dot com. And like, that happened over a year or two. And this is feels like it's happening within the last 6 months kind of thing. So, it's it's definitely a brand new epoch in how we're actually building and how we're doing things. We obviously use Copilot extensively here at GitHub for building GitHub and for building Copilot. So, um, if we actually have a look, Copilot is the number one, two, and three contributor to the GitHub codebase right now in terms of building, you know, as it should be. And one of the kind of questions I wanted to ask, uh, you was if if GitHub Copilot, you all nearly everybody here already uses Copilot, if it isn't the number one contributor to your codebase is at work, why is that? That's an interesting question cuz it can work 24/7, it can do stuff overnight. Like, why why isn't it contributing more? What can we do there to help you adopt it in your team? Um, however, the thing like, you're all here because it said, do you feel like you're late to the agent coding party kind of thing? Under This is the standard like Moore's innovation curve, you know? This is This is These are These are the people on Twitter going, "Blah blah blah." You know? These are the people that make you feel like you're late to the party. You're at Build for crying out loud. You are in this section here in the early adopters and maybe broadening up to early majority. And like, kind of crossing over here. The people back in your office, they're all over here. Yeah? And so, what's actually interesting is not just where you are in this curve and where it feels, but also understanding that the needs of these people are very different to the needs of the people over here. For example, if you're in the innovators, if if early adopters, you will completely change how you work to suit the tool because you're trying to get the most out of the latest and cool tools. That's not going to happen in your organizations, you know, if if somebody can't use um a random version of Eclipse to talk to Copilot, they're never going to use Copilot or AR, you know what I mean? The The people have got stuff in the tools that they're going to want to use. And so, what's needed inside your organization change difference as well, which is why choice is so important across your entire company. Across >> There was a study that Microsoft did recently saying that 84% of developers are using AI or using it nearly daily, which is wild. But at the same time, that same study, it's flipped in terms of the entire world outside of the tech industry, 84% of people have never touched it. And so, when you think about that, again, just being here, being on that side of the curve, you are not only early to it, even if you're just dabbling in it, you're also at this point where you can shape the You can be the change you want to see in the world and shape the way these tools are going and develop practices and stuff, as cheesy as that sounds, because so much of the world has yet to catch up. The things that we're building here and talking about here is something that is going to be impacting so many people in the world, but we're very, very early and it's very, very early, even though it feels like everybody's already in it. >> Okay. And then, lastly, on this bit, um yeah, as we all know, writing code's never been faster, and this is what you were saying in the keynote, like, just emitting code's fine. >> You You're writing so much and you're creating so much. There's mass volumes in open-source repos constantly and just being put out there, but it's not always being merged and it's not actually being committed a good percentage of the time. >> Yeah, so how do we actually build code that's going to last? How How we make sure when we don't become like slot factories? You know what I mean? Um and what you'll notice is like experienced devs like Copilot's rocket fuel to experienced devs. But where we also need to make sure is we're building the safeguards and the the skills and the instructions so that everybody in your org is creating code of decent quality, not just the experienced devs, you know, I think that's probably quite Yeah. >> A big thing that I think we also want to drill home to is like yes, we're all building, we're all learning and and doing all of that, but the disadvantage of AI is you don't get to learn from failure like you once did in the past. And so that's something that we have to kind of talk with our teams about and figure out how can we continue to communicate and learn from each other in ways where we can learn these tools better, learn things yes, like the right way, but also bring people up in the industry who don't have that experience and who don't know how to hold it correctly and use things well. >> Sorry, I was just I was just flipping cuz I was seeing I've got some There's some quite amusing answers have come in. Yeah, no, it's all good. And then yeah, as I say, choice is important. And that's not just model choice, that's not just choice of how you talk to your agent, if it's through a CLI, if it's through the web, if it's through your IDE, but also yeah, which editor you use, which workflows you want to use. Okay. We got to code. >> Okay, now it's coding time. What did the session do? What what issues were made? >> Let's have a quick look. So, we've got some amazing ones here and we've got some ones that we also submitted. Now notice, uh I asked to create here uh I asked it to create a bunch of issues for me. But you notice how it prefixed it with idea {colon} blah? That's because the GitHub Copilot app was smart enough to go and check and notice that I had coding standards checked in. So, I actually have an issue template. So, when I'm creating a new idea, I have a form I want to fill in for new ideas. And Copilot was smart enough to detect that and it actually uses it. And that's one of the great things about the Copilot app is that it's fully integrated with GitHub, which I didn't know it would do. So, that's pretty awesome. >> I'm so glad it did it correctly. >> Right, which one do you want to tackle? And I'll >> Okay, let's let's look at some of the ideas. >> Okay. Oops, sorry. Which one interests you the most? >> were There were some that we created and those are the ones with enhancement. I gesture rock, paper, scissors. That's fun. >> That's not Well, what we can do is how about we go build that one ourselves live? Well, this build a better MS Build app. That sounds like pretty relevant. >> That's fair. >> So, what we're going to do with this is we're going to say at Copilot research the current uh build application for MS Build. I should have done voice. >> You really should have. >> Um and the codes and give me ideas for a better app iOS and Android, please. Oops. Uh whatever. >> Yeah. >> Please. >> It understands your typos. >> Yeah. Right. So, while that's working and Copilot's going to go do the research and uh and look at stuff, it'll come up in a minute and give it a little lies and do it. That's how you use Copilot through the web. You basically can at Copilot or you can assign to Copilot and then it can be involved in the conversation and do things for you. And you can kind of delegate activity. You see there? >> We can just hit assign. We don't even need a prompt. >> there you go. Cool. Right. So, that's going to go do the work. Right, let's go build one live. Which one? Sorry. Let's go to the app. Uh which one was it? It was just a pair of scissors. Do you want to do it from the app? Let's do it from the app. Do you want to do it from the app or the CLI? Let's take votes. Who wants to do it from the Who wants to do it from VS Code? VS Code. Okay. Who wants to do it from the CLI? Mine's got to be less. And then who wants to do it FROM THE APP? OH, THERE YOU GO. YOU WERE RIGHT. Go on. You take it away, Cassie. So, hey, we talked about my work. This has Oh, you have so much work to do. I'm not going to look at that. Okay. Let's go into the issues. Let's see. We had issue number What was the issue for that? Uh The number was up the pound sign, it will show you it, but Uh That was number 19. Okay. So, we're going to go there and we're going to say, let's come up with a plan for issue number 19. And it pulls that in. You notice we didn't have to refresh the app or anything. It's live pulling in all of the issues that come in. And then we're going to come up with a plan. You can set the num the amount of reasoning. Probably should have set it to low, but it's okay. You can set the amount of reasoning. You can choose which models that you want to use. We have all of the different model providers and stuff, and you could even use bring your own key or bring in local models if you have any hosts on Foundry, which is works well as well. There's also this interactive mode. This is a step-by-step collaboration. We could have changed this to plan mode, or we could have just said just go do it, and that's what Autopilot is. The slash command for that in the CLI is YOLO, or you could do allow all, and but it that just says I want you to do it, go, and then you can come back later to a finished product. But we'll start a little bit here where we have this plan. And say, oh, it almost showed a render diagram, but that's okay. So, let's see. It has a this tech stack. We're going to use MediaPipe Hands for gesture recognition. Let's put it in autopilot. Let's do it. >> Yeah. We'll just say go. >> Yeah, so that's a great demo. Uh but hopefully it will be when it goes builds it. But in the enterprise we very very rarely stick it in Yolo mode. >> We we do not say go typically at work. >> So that's Yeah, so that's why do you want to talk about plan mode and things? >> Yeah, so I want to go a bit deeper into plan mode. So typically what I do when I start a project or when I'm working with a feature in a project you that is when I use plan mode. And so you can do that in an existing repo. What I often do if I'm doing a new project is in a quick chat. A quick chat is just a session that isn't attached to a repo. You can ask any side questions you want. You could ask what the weather is in Chicago or something depending on what servers you have pulled in. You can add whatever MCP servers or skills you want and just go. And so what I'll do in plan mode is we can talk about a different one of these issues. We could Let's do another one at the same time. Let's do that side scroller platformer game. The side scrolling platformer game. That was issue number 17. Let's go in there and we'll say uh let's come up with a step-by-step plan for issue 17. And then I could use again 4.6. Let's try GPT 5.5. We'll try something else. We'll start with low reasoning for now and go from there. So as you change your reasoning as you decide how you want to do things you can control it. And you could also just do auto mode too. Auto mode intelligently picks different models depending on the context to figure out the right tool for the right use case. >> So how many times have you like asked a really dumb question and then realized you were in like Opus 4.6 or Opus 4.8 or something and you just burned on whatever it is today 54 or 100 whatever we made it today like PRUs all of a sudden on a simple question when you could have given it to high Q or whatever and it just burned like point one of a one. So, using auto mode kind of helps you do your model routing or you can do that manually as well. So, my auto mode's going to be in coming increasingly important as like we have different models with different costs and things. >> And so, something that you might have noticed is it said, "What repo are we talking about for issue 17?" And so, I I answered it with the with the repo based on the question it asked. I started looking at the stack and I added, "Don't worry about the stack." What's also nice is it is a collaboration tool, so you don't have to wait for it to stop before you continue. You can have the conversation just interrupt whatever the thought is. And hey, we have a start of a plan. And so, we've got some plan Darius browser side scrolling platformer, covers physics and stuff. I can also suggest changes to the plan or open it on the side here and it can hold open that in a markdown editor and actually mess with it there. I'm going to do the just in the chat though and I'm going to say, "Let's discuss the stack further." >> Can you see that okay at the back? Yeah, yep, okay. >> And so, then it'll say, "Okay, well, let's let's narrow it down a little bit." And so, what I typically do when I'm in plan mode is I keep prompting questions. Sometimes some models are very quick to be just like, "Okay, here's your plan." And then you're done. I like to keep going back and forth to really find a lot of holes in it. And so, let's say we could say, "I want to do this with phaser." But then I could also add a rubber duck, too. I mentioned rubber duck earlier today, but what rubber duck can do, you can either have it automatically run on different runs or you could say just start the rubber duck. That queries a different model family than the one that you're using. So, we mentioned that we're using GPT-55. That queries it'll it might do Claude. I don't know which Claude model it'll do. Probably a Claude or Gemini model. Yeah, it might do Opus 48. And it asks that rubber duck to vet the plan and find holes in the plan. And so, as it does that, it not only refines it, but it might ask you more questions depending on what it is. And we'll just do this live and see what it's doing. But >> we actually find by having the model having Copilot check its own work with a different model, regardless of the model you're using, gives you a better result every single time. And actually getting it to go back and forth quite often is pretty cool as well. >> statistically significant improvement, which is pretty cool to see. >> Well, while we're in this, why is Dennis Can I show them quickly fleets in the command line? >> Sure, and then we can go back to our gesture conversation. >> Let's try this out first. >> Yeah. >> All right, what's this doing? Build a do do do do do. >> It looks like it built it and wants you to review it. You could probably run it, too. >> see what happens if we press that? >> Yeah. Uh you didn't configure it. It's okay. >> Uh I'm going to say uh open a browser uh a web server. >> So, you can ask it to do whatever you want, like open a browser or do these things, or you could do it yourself. You can run things in a terminal. Everything is happening in work trees, so as these things happen side by side, Yeah, why not? Um it it won't step on each other, which is particularly nice. >> Uh I might have to just go to open it. Hang on a second. >> Oh, yeah, go for it. Something that, for example, one of my colleagues particularly likes to do is use Playwright, the MCP server, to screenshot websites and check out things. And so, she adds it to like her MCP servers that are always in use at the user level. And so, she'll put in URLs and say, "I really like the styles of this website. How would you describe this design?" Or "I'm going to take the styles from the Microsoft build website and apply it to this project that I'm working on and it's a good way to be able to vet things visually and it's built-in and so it'll open the browser it'll take the screenshot it does everything that the MCP server can do with just a command. >> There we go. >> Oh. That's cool. I like how it froze your face. Okay. Rock, paper, scissors. >> I start game. Ready? >> Wow. Okay. Oh. >> Oh. >> Oh, I okay. I get it now. Dang it. >> It's too It's too good. >> I feel like that's cheating. Oh, wait there it is. Okay. I'm going to try one more time. Does it just win every time? >> Hey. >> Hey, there we go. Okay, that's nice. >> And this is why like Copilot is like rocket fuel to like because um is Cass Cassidy's like an actually good developer and so when you're doing like when you have experience and you know which frameworks to pick it's great because then you can guide it you give it constraints and then it can create what you want to do. If you're somebody like me who just plays a developer on TV then actually what then happens then is you can make bad choices in terms of architecture and stuff. So as developers you still have to be in control you still have to steer and you still have to like point it in the right ways. >> What else have we got? >> I just went back to plan mode and answered a question. >> Okay. I could do >> Something that is particularly nice with the plan to I'm also aware of the time is it creates an actual little SQL to do mini app within the app so that way it can make sure it checks off all of the to-do items for every task that you want to run. >> Right, I'm going to leave you a couple while while this is working I want to do a couple of quick tips. One is Uh, this is the in the command line. Notice when you start the command line up, if it doesn't find Co-pilot instructions, it it thinks it's so important that it will tell you off. Co-pilot instructions is how you tell Co-pilot about your project. That's where you point it to things like your coding standards, how you want things to build, how you want things laid out. If you got an existing project, Co-pilot's amazing at analyzing your project and creating a Co-pilot instructions for you. So, you can edit it. So, you should create those and then check them in because that's how you constrain your code and tell it what to do so that other people in your team who may be aren't as experienced can get to know how to use the thing. >> Have any of you used or heard of Spec Kit? Spec Kit? That's your homework. Check out Spec Kit. It's a great way to be able to add markdown files and various just instructions and tell your agents how to work with your repos. And it's documentation that's agent native. It's a really great way of working. >> I'm just going to do a one on this. It's not going to finish in time. But yeah. >> Sure. You could also just click implement. >> Oh, okay. Cool. That's amazing. That's great. And then, uh, lastly, before we go just into wrap up, um, couple of quick commands that you probably want to know. Uh, which ones Which one are your favorites? >> I >> like this remote. >> Chronicle. >> Oh, yeah. Remote. Go for it. >> Let's see if we'll finish on chronicle. So, one is if you want to do, uh, remote and I'm going to do remote on. That'll actually come in. Uh, oops. Remote on. Da da da da da. Oh, hang on. Remote on. So, what I can come in and do here is I can create, uh, a pipe back into my agent. So, then I can kick it off on a long running task on my local machine, point my phone at it, and then walk away, and then go be controlling it from the thing. And then, the other one I wanted to do was >> Chronicle. >> Yeah, let's finish on that. Uh there's a new command that just landed called Chronicle. And then if you look, you've got different options. For example, give me what I'm a stand-up. Tell me what's happening, you know, what did I do yesterday? Well, this uh the one that we like cost tips. Should we show that one? >> I love cost tips. >> Uh yeah, go >> Especially as we're figuring out all of our token management and everything, it actually gives you advice based on your usage saying, "Hey, you should be using this model more often, or consider switching into this mode or that mode." And it helps you figure out how to reduce your context windows and be more efficient with your tokens. >> Okay. So, that's we've about at time on what we can show you, but as you can tell, we could play with this all day long. Please come over uh to the the you know, the ask the experts areas over there. We've got people hanging out and playing with Copilot. Come along to the ship and tell booth. We're doing a bunch of stuff and playing with that. >> We're here all week. >> We're all week. Yeah, try the real. But the key thing is that you just give it a go. Try these tools, learn them, and play with them, and use your time here to do it so you can ship it at home. Any last words? >> Thank you so much for being here. We're We genuinely really like teaching you these things, and I meant it when I said it earlier, you guys are at the forefront of so many new changes that are coming to our tools, and we'd love hearing your feedback so we can make them better for you, and so you can build better things for your users. >> Thanks everybody. Thank you for your time.