Learn: GitHub Copilot for Teams — Getting Started

What Is GitHub Copilot?

GitHub Copilot is an AI assistant built into VS Code. Most developers know it as autocomplete — it suggests the next line of code as you type. But it’s also a full chat assistant and can run as an agent that plans, writes, tests, and reviews code on your behalf.

This series focuses on using Copilot as an agent — a structured AI workflow partner that knows your project and follows your team’s standards.

Step 1 — Get a Copilot Plan

You need a GitHub Copilot subscription. Go to:

👉 github.com/features/copilot

Plan	Who it’s for	Price
Copilot Free	Individuals (limited requests/month)	Free
Copilot Individual	Solo developers (unlimited)	$10/month
Copilot Business	Teams (centrally managed)	$19/user/month
Copilot Enterprise	Large orgs (custom policies)	$39/user/month

For most teams: Copilot Business gives each developer unlimited access and lets a team lead manage settings centrally.

Step 2 — Install VS Code

If you don’t have VS Code:

👉 code.visualstudio.com

Download and install for your OS (Windows / macOS / Linux). It’s free.

Step 3 — Install the GitHub Copilot Extension

Open VS Code
Click the Extensions icon in the left sidebar (or press Ctrl+Shift+X / Cmd+Shift+X)
Search for “GitHub Copilot”
Click Install on the extension by GitHub

You’ll see two extensions — install both:

GitHub Copilot — the inline autocomplete
GitHub Copilot Chat — the chat panel and agent mode

After installing, VS Code will ask you to sign in with GitHub — sign in with the account that has your Copilot subscription

Step 4 — Open Copilot Chat

Once signed in, you’ll see a chat icon in the left sidebar (looks like a speech bubble with a star).

Click it. You now have access to:

Ask — general coding questions
Edit — make changes to files
Agent — run a full AI agent session

Where you’ll spend most time in this system: the Agent tab, where you select an agent (like Discuss or Planner) and it guides your work through phases.

Step 5 — Enable Copilot’s Customization Features

By default, VS Code doesn’t automatically load your .github/instructions/ files. You need to turn this on once per project by adding these settings to your workspace .vscode/settings.json:

{
  "github.copilot.chat.codeGeneration.useInstructionFiles": true,
  "chat.promptFilesLocations": [".github/prompts"],
  "chat.instructionsFilesLocations": [".github/instructions"]
}

How to do this:

In VS Code, press Ctrl+Shift+P (or Cmd+Shift+P)
Type “Open Workspace Settings (JSON)” and press Enter
Paste the JSON above inside the {} brackets
Save the file
Reload VS Code (Ctrl+Shift+P → “Reload Window”)

After reload, Copilot will automatically load the right instructions based on which file you have open — without you doing anything else.

Step 6 — Install This Boilerplate

The learn/ folder you’re reading now stays in this boilerplate repo as a reference guide. When you install into your project, only .github/ and docs/ (templates, examples) are copied — learn/ is excluded. See Part 08 — Boilerplate Setup for full instructions, or use the quick install:

Browse as a website: srisatyalokesh.github.io/copilot-team-workflow

PowerShell (Windows)

cd your-project
git clone https://github.com/SriSatyaLokesh/copilot-team-workflow.git copilot-boilerplate
Copy-Item -Recurse copilot-boilerplate\.github .\
Get-ChildItem copilot-boilerplate\docs -Exclude 'learn' | Copy-Item -Destination .\docs -Recurse -Force
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force logs\copilot
Add-Content .gitignore "`nlogs/"
Remove-Item -Recurse -Force copilot-boilerplate
git add .github/ docs/ .gitignore
git commit -m "chore: add Copilot team workflow boilerplate"
git push

Bash (Linux / macOS)

cd your-project
git clone https://github.com/SriSatyaLokesh/copilot-team-workflow.git copilot-boilerplate
cp -r copilot-boilerplate/.github ./
rsync -av --exclude='learn/' copilot-boilerplate/docs/ ./docs/ 2>/dev/null || { cp -r copilot-boilerplate/docs ./ && rm -rf docs/learn; }
mkdir -p logs/copilot
chmod +x .github/hooks/session-auto-commit/auto-commit.sh
chmod +x .github/hooks/session-logger/*.sh
echo "logs/" >> .gitignore
rm -rf copilot-boilerplate
git add .github/ docs/ .gitignore
git commit -m "chore: add Copilot team workflow boilerplate"
git push

Reload VS Code after committing. Copilot will now load the project instructions automatically.

What You Can Do Now

Open Copilot Chat → select the Agent tab → choose “Discuss” → describe a task.

That’s it. The Discuss agent will guide you through the first phase of the workflow — Discuss → Research → Plan → Execute → Verify — step by step.

The Problem This Solves

Every team using Copilot hits the same wall:

“Copilot doesn’t know our architecture — it keeps suggesting the wrong pattern.” “Every developer uses Copilot differently — no consistency.” “Context gets lost between sessions — we repeat ourselves every day.” “We don’t know what decisions the AI made during a session.”

This system solves all of those by teaching Copilot your project once — and having every developer follow the same structured workflow.

Who This Is For

Role	What you get
Developer (new to Copilot)	Clear step-by-step workflow, no guessing
Developer (experienced)	Architecture-aware Copilot, no repeated context setting
Tech Lead	Coordination system for parallel work across the team
New hire	A documented project where Copilot teaches you as you code

The Full Series

Part	Topic	Read time
00	Getting Started — Installation & Setup (this file)	5 min
01	What’s in the .github folder?	8 min
02	The 5-Phase Issue Workflow	10 min
03	API Architecture — The Layer Rules	12 min
04	Documenting External APIs	10 min
05	Your Daily Developer Workflow	8 min
06	Hooks — What Runs Automatically	6 min
07	Customizing for your project — what to fill in	10 min
08	Using This Repo as a Boilerplate	5 min
09	Test-Driven Development (TDD)	10 min
10	Subagent-Driven Development	8 min

Total read time: ~90 minutes

Continue to Part 01 → 01-github-folder-explained.md