Using GitHub Copilot with GitHub Agentic Workflows

GitHub Copilot CLI is a coding agent from GitHub and the default AI engine for GitHub Agentic Workflows. GitHub Agentic Workflows runs Copilot CLI in GitHub Actions, adding GitHub event triggers and guardrails.

GitHub Copilot is the default AI engine used by GitHub Agentic Workflows. To select it explicitly, add this to the workflow frontmatter:

engine: copilot

To authenticate:

• For organization-billed usage, grant copilot-requests: write.
• Otherwise, to authenticate with a GitHub Copilot subscription, provide a COPILOT_GITHUB_TOKEN secret containing a fine-grained PAT with Copilot Requests access.

---
on:
  schedule: daily

permissions:
  contents: read
  issues: read
  pull-requests: read
  copilot-requests: write

engine: copilot

safe-outputs:
  create-issue:
    title-prefix: "[status] "
    labels: [report]
    close-older-issues: true
---

# Daily Repository Status

Analyze the repository and create a concise daily status report covering:
- Open issues and their priority
- Recent PR activity
- Upcoming work items

Copilot supports the broadest set of gh-aw engine-specific features: native custom-agent selection with engine.agent, custom harnesses, max-continuations, bare mode, and per-command bash allowlisting. Copilot CLI does not provide native tools.web-search; configure a supported MCP search integration when the workflow requires web search. See the AI engine feature comparison.

Running coding agent CLIs such as copilot directly in GitHub Actions without an adequate security architecture is not recommended. GitHub Agentic Workflows gives an appropriate security architecture and workflow portability across AI engines.

• Quick start
• Engine reference
• Authentication
• Security architecture
• Gallery