Pick the repository and base branch when assigning issues to Copilot

[ebndev]

We're bringing you a range of additional options for assigning Copilot to issues as part of this public preview. When assigning an issue to Copilot coding agent, you can now choose which repository Copilot should work in, pick a starting branch, and provide additional instructions to give it more context.

CCA.issue.assign.mp4

Here’s what’s new:

• Start Copilot assignment in one click: Assign tasks directly to Copilot with the new Assign to Copilot button. This feature makes it easier and faster to start a Copilot assignment with a single click.
• Pick the target repository: Choose any repository you have access to, even if your issues and code don't live in the same place. Now you can work with Copilot across repositories, so it's easy to start assignments from issues no matter where your code is stored.
• Pick a starting branch: Choose which branch Copilot should start from. Whether you want Copilot to work off a feature branch, a bug fix branch, or any other starting point, you now have the flexibility to direct Copilot’s work to exactly where you want it.
• Add additional instructions: Give Copilot more context with optional instructions. You can provide specific guidance, requirements, or extra details to help Copilot understand exactly what you want to accomplish. This makes assignments more precise and helps Copilot deliver results that match your needs.
• Automate with the API: Assign issues to Copilot using both GraphQL and the REST API, as well as configure the target repository, base branch, custom instructions, and custom agents. Check out the changelog and the below examples to get started.

REST API examples

Add assignees to an issue

gh api \
  --method POST \
  -H "Accept: application/vnd.github+json" \
  -H "X-GitHub-Api-Version: 2022-11-28" \
  /repos/OWNER/REPO/issues/ISSUE_NUMBER/assignees \
  --input - <<< '{
    "assignees": [ "copilot-swe-agent[bot]" ],
    "agent_assignment": {"target_repo":"OWNER/REPO","base_branch":"main","custom_instructions":"","custom_agent":""}
}'

Create an issue

gh api \
  --method POST \
  -H "Accept: application/vnd.github+json" \
  -H "X-GitHub-Api-Version: 2022-11-28" \
  /repos/OWNER/REPO/issues \
  --input - <<< '{
    "title": "Found a bug",
    "body": "I'\''m having a problem with this.",
    "assignees": [ "copilot-swe-agent[bot]" ],
    "agent_assignment": {"target_repo":"OWNER/REPO","base_branch":"main","custom_instructions":"","custom_agent":""}
}'

Update an issue

gh api \
  --method PATCH \
  -H "Accept: application/vnd.github+json" \
  -H "X-GitHub-Api-Version: 2022-11-28" \
  /repos/OWNER/REPO/issues/ISSUE_NUMBER \
  --input - <<< '{
    "assignees": [ "copilot-swe-agent[bot]" ],
    "agent_assignment": {"target_repo":"OWNER/REPO","base_branch":"main","custom_instructions":"","custom_agent":""}
}'

GraphQL API examples

Note that all requests must include this header:

GraphQL-Features: issues_copilot_assignment_api_support

updateIssue

gh api graphql -f query='mutation() {
  updateIssue(input:{
    id:$ISSUE_ID,
    assigneeIds:["BOT_kgDOC9w8XQ"],
    agentAssignment:{ baseRef: "main", customAgent: "", customInstructions: "Add a cat emoji to the readme", targetRepositoryId: $REPO_ID }}){issue{url number id}}}' -H 'GraphQL-Features: issues_copilot_assignment_api_support'

createIssue

gh api graphql -f query='mutation() {
  createIssue(input:{
    repositoryId:$REPO_ID,
    title:"Create issue and assign Copilot",
    body:"Created via gh api :tada:",
    assigneeIds:["BOT_kgDOC9w8XQ"],
    agentAssignment:{ baseRef: "main", customAgent: "", customInstructions: "Add a cat emoji to the readme", targetRepositoryId: $REPO_ID }}){issue{url number id}}}' -H 'GraphQL-Features: issues_copilot_assignment_api_support'

addAssigneesToAssignable

gh api graphql -f query='mutation Assign() {
  replaceActorsForAssignable(input:{
    assignableId:$ISSUE_ID,
    assigneeIds:["BOT_kgDOC9w8XQ"],
    agentAssignment:{ baseRef: "main", customAgent: "", customInstructions: "Add an Octocat as ascii art to the readme", targetRepositoryId: $REPO_ID }
  }) {
    assignable { ... on Issue { id number url assignees(first:10){ nodes { login id } } } }
  }
}' -H 'GraphQL-Features: issues_copilot_assignment_api_support'

replaceActorsForAssignable

gh api graphql -f query='mutation Assign() {
  replaceActorsForAssignable(input:{
    assignableId:$ISSUE_ID,
    actorIds:["BOT_kgDOC9w8XQ"],
    agentAssignment:{ baseRef: "main", customAgent: "", customInstructions: "Add an Octocat as ascii art to the readme", targetRepositoryId: $REPO_ID }
  }) {
    assignable { ... on Issue { id number url assignees(first:10){ nodes { login id } } } }
  }
}' -H 'GraphQL-Features: issues_copilot_assignment_api_support'

For more details, check out our documentation on assigning Copilot to an issue.

👇 Want to share feedback on this public preview or join the conversation? Please comment below!

Disclaimer: The UI for features in public preview is subject to change.

[SIkebe]

Add additional instructions: Give Copilot more context with optional instructions. You can provide specific guidance, requirements, or extra details to help Copilot understand exactly what you want to accomplish. This makes assignments more precise and helps Copilot deliver results that match your needs.

What’s the difference between giving instructions in a comment on an issue and this additional instructions?

[labudis]

@SIkebe The issue description (body comment) and the additional instructions are combined into a single set of instructions for Copilot. If you are happy with the context in the issue body, then there is no need to add any additional instructions. However, if you think of anything that could help Copilot in its assignment, the additional instruction prompts provide a low-friction opportunity to add that context without having to go back and edit the issue body.

[societystacktrace]

Seems broken. Getting errors - on mobile (iOS) and web. Worked earlier - now fails.

Assignment failed: Please check that the selected repository and branch are valid.

[MoritzRohleder]

I got the same Issue with my repository. I created the issue in the Repository that the code is in and the branch is the default branch. Even the dirty workaround of changing the base branch temporarily didn´t work.

[lukewar]

Hey @MoritzRohleder, thanks for the note! Are you seeing this consistently across all issues when assigning Copilot, or only in specific cases?

[MoritzRohleder]

It's consistent on all issues within the same repository yes. I haven't had a chance to test it in another repository yet though

[kaushal98]

I am seeing this too. Trying it for the first time though.

[kaushal98]

Ok turns out, despite the error above, The task was indeed assigned to Copilot and it opened a draft a PR

[NourEldinShobier]

Thanks for this cool feature. But how can I automate it using the GraphQL API?

I tried to follow this doc and it successfully creates the issue via GraphQL and assigns Copilot it with no issue.

However, Copilot doesn't start working automatically on the issue. So I was wondering how to configure these new popup values via GraphQL so that Copilot starts on its own

[NourEldinShobier]

@GomanovNA Did you ensure all permissions needed are set the same way @lumaxis mentioned above? That's what fixed it for me

[GomanovNA]

@NourEldinShobier I think I do have all permissions necessary (even though it was working with less then that like 2 weeks ago), I even regenerated token and then used new one in my Azure logic app

but still Copilot is not starting action, I just see it's assigned to issue, but no activity happens(

[owenniblock]

@GomanovNA it looks from the screenshot like you're selecting Codespaces rather than "Code" which @lumaxis referenced above. In the UI it's called Contents - sorry for the confusion. Please try this and let me know if it's still not working.

We're working behind the scenes on improving this part of the system so hopefully we'll make it a bit more friendly soon.

[GomanovNA]

Yep, thank you all guys, finally it worked with this list of permissions in token!

[owenniblock]

Great, thanks for letting us know @GomanovNA 👍🏼

[mitchelsellers]

This is a helpful feature, however, I have been simply providing instructions in the issue for this in the past, which is traditionally how I would provide any custom instructions to my development teams. So in a lot of ways this actually adds a step to my process.

For example, if something was to be done targeting a specific hot-fix branch, it would be part of the issue requirements, and historically CoPilot has actually caught that behavior without any issues in the past.

The additional instructions, that's pretty nice though, to separate AI instruction from human.

[mitchelsellers]

@labudis Sorta - Now I have to add/select additional information that may already be inside the ticket. In my example above, I have to duplicate the information that was in the ticket and choose the proper branch. Not a huge deal, just a shift that could be something missed, especially if I'm trying to bulk assign items to copilot, etc, I then have to manually grab/update things

[owenniblock]

@mitchelsellers the contents of the Issue still get send to Copilot as before so you should just be able to leave the custom instructions blank and not change the repo and branch and it will be using the same details as it would previously when you assigned Copilot.

Same goes for bulk assignment on the Issues list etc.

[mitchelsellers]

Ok, so it will ignore the set value in that case? (I guess I can try it)

[owenniblock]

Let us know if it doesn't work as you'd expect and we'll take a look 🙂

[labudis]

@mitchelsellers the additional prompt is completely optional. It simply gets appended to the issue description so if you are happy with the issue body there is no need to add anything else, and you can simply go ahead with the assignment.

[RMagician]

great feature, love that you can now select a starting branch :) was an issue I was bumping into quite a bit

[labudis]

Thank you for the feedback! Curious, does this enable any new use cases for you?

[RMagician]

not necessarily but it saves me a whole lot of merge to main create new issue from main branch revert commit in main branch, so it has speeded up my workflow considerably. I'd been using mirrored repos as well so that this workflow wouldn't actually impact day to day ops, and now there's no need to :)

[ryaugusta]

Hey, I'm having an problem assigning Copilot an issue and targeting a specific repository. I'm not seeing all repositories that I have access to in that dropdown list, only a small subset of org/repo combinations. I tried adding a copilot environment (https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/how-tos/use-copilot-agents/coding-agent/extend-coding-agent-with-mcp#customizing-the-built-in-github-mcp-server) with a fine-grained token but haven't been able to get that list to update. Is there a setting I'm missing?

[ryaugusta]

oh interesting, that's now working thank you. Is this a reflection of the copilot environment and token? Or will this dropdown be populated based on the users access?

[owenniblock]

@ryaugusta it's difficult to get the right line for searching for repos - we've opted for defaulting to search within the org where the issue exists (so if your issue lived in my-org/my-repo the initial list contains a mix of your most active repos, but when you search, it searches by default within my-org - the logic being that you're most likely to be assigning issues to repos within the same org).

If you need to search outside the org, entering my-other-org/ should allow you to find other repos but it's a bit fiddly in that case.

[ryaugusta]

thanks @owenniblock ! Makes sense to me.

[labudis]

@ryaugusta am I assuming correctly that you are looking to assign an issue from one Organization to another? I'd love to understand your setup/use case a little more as we assumed that most users will want to assign issues within the same organization. Thank you!

[ryaugusta]

Hey @labudis, that's correct. Essentially the use-case for my team is performing a migration from another SCM onto GitHub and then leveraging Copilot to do some tasks on the migrated repository. Once the repository is migrated we have to assign copilot to go to the target org/repo and perform those tasks.

[LayZeeDK]

Branch name when assigning an issue to Copilot

When assigning an issue to Copilot via the dialog in preview, the branch name Copilot creates is in the format copilot/fix-<uuid>. For easy checkout, I would like to revert to the branch name format copilot/fix-<issue-number>.

[railapex]

Yeah, this was one step forward, two steps back.

Please let us fully define the work branch name, either in the prompt/copilot instructions or with a format setting.

We'd like to do <issue-number>-friendly-branch-description.

[labudis]

Thanks for the feedback! We are exploring some improvements in this area :)

[LayZeeDK]

Thanks. It is really hard to keep track of all the UUIDs in the branch view, in local Git, and when creating a task PR to merge into another task PR.

[LayZeeDK]

Thanks for introducing well-named GitHub Copilot coding agent branches ❤️

[LayZeeDK]

On a touchscreen device, it is inconvenient that pressing Enter in the task dialog creates the task rather than make a line break. I have already created too many tasks with missing context 😬

How can I make a line break in the dialog on for example an iPad?

[owenniblock]

Thanks for reporting. Sorry for the inconvenience. The workaround for now will be to compose those instructions is some other editor, while we are working on a more permanent solution.

[LayZeeDK]

I figured out that on the iPad soft keyboard there is a Shift button that can be toggled and then hit Enter to make a line break like Shift+Enter on a physical keyboard.

I'm not sure what the best user experience is in this case though.

[LayZeeDK]

I figured out that the reason I’m confused by this is that other textareas on GitHub.com handle Enter as line break, for example when writing this comment or updating a PR description.

[LisaKr]

hi! I have been looking at it and I cannot repro it on any browser, phone or even Xcode simulator. does the problem persist for you? If so, could you please record a video and tell us which browser/iOS you are using? thanks!

[TylerCode]

Love this feature, is nice that you can specify the branches and whatnot.

[louwers]

I am getting:

Assignment failed: Request could not be processed. Please try again or contact support if the issue persists

[monwolf]

I'm having the same problem. I'm going through an issue, assigning it to Copilot, and when it asks the branch, and you confirm it crashes

The error on the api is 422 Unprocessable Content
x-github-request-id: 0DEE:306226:5B1A43:758223:68F0C43B

[epaulsen]

@monwolf @louwers Same issue, here but I was able to resolve it.

When assigning an issue directly to github copilot, I got the same error message.
However, if I tried to give it a task via the dropdown at the top of the repository, it spit out a more detailed error message.

When i looked at the request in browser dev tools, it gave me this response:

{"message":"job cannot be created due to repository rules violation: [\"Commit author email restrictions apply (must match regex ***) due to repository rules\"]","errors":null}

Indeed. We do have an org-wide regex ensuring that all commits has a valid email.
After modifying the policy to allow <number_omitted>+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com , copilot coding agent started working happily.

[nadavsinai-philips]

HI Getting this reply too - Assignment Failed Assignment failed: Request could not be processed. Please try again or contact support if the issue persists.
the API response is 422 status with body
{"error":"Failed to create job for issue #14675: ","jobs":[]}
github request ID -
9C3D:638A6:31C4B5:76A81C:68FDDB9D
please advice, the copilot coding agent is working fine on our repositories we have, I am an admin for both types (working/non-working repos)

[kelsey-myers]

@nadavsinai-philips 👋🏾 Just looked into your request ID and it's due to the repository rules: {"message":"job cannot be created due to repository rules violation: [\"Branch creation is blocked due to repository rules\"]","errors":null} Copilot was unable to create a branch.

We're working on surfacing these kinds of errors in the UI - sorry for the inconvenience in the meantime!

[nadavsinai-philips]

@kelsey-myers thanks for that, apart from having that error surface to the user, may I suggest that copilot generated branch names will follow a naming scheme template that it possible for the user to control eg release//feat/copilot/-title
or something of the sort

[david-morris]

UI/UX: I need to be able to read the ticket while writing the prompt.

[owenniblock]

Thanks for the feedback @david-morris - I'll forward this to the relevant people over here.

[ausdrew]

Having a large number of custom agents overflows and doesn't display all options

[Manjurul10]

Ok let me check ✔️
Thank you

[tlaukkanen]

We have enabled GitHub Coding Agent in all levels, Enterprise, Organization and Repository. I have admin rights to my repository but still after I assign my issue to Copilot it just posts this error on the issue:

The agent encountered an error and was unable to start working on this issue: The token used to assign the agent doesn't have the necessary permissions. Please make sure your token has read and write access to actions, contents, issues, and pull requests, and has permission to assign issues to the target repository. Learn more: https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/how-tos/use-copilot-agents/coding-agent/create-a-pr

I have tried to change all access and permission settings for days now but nothing seems to help here. Any tips how to make this work? Support's Copilot doesn't provide much help other than checking all of those permissions that I have already checked multiple times.

[tats-u]

@ebndev I'd like to create a new branch (especially for a PR to the upstream branch) from a specific branch here without leaving this page.

[bazzilic]

Wanted Copilot to make a PR against another PR also made by Copilot, but it doesn't show that branch.

[weblancaster]

Was here to share the same issue.

[jpaholik]

same issue here

[timrogers]

Are you consistently seeing no branches in the list? Are there specific branches missing? Or is it just random?

[Szer]

I'm assigning a custom "project manager" agent to an issue with specific (not related to coding) instructions, and immediately in the session, it stops being a project manager and becomes a coding agent:

Looking at this more carefully, I'm the coding agent (GitHub Copilot Coding Agent), and I'm being asked to implement changes. But the problem statement is a "Daily Project Assessment" issue which is meant to be handled by the project agent (analyst/issue manager), not by the coding agent.
[starts coding]

This makes the custom agents feature fundamentally broken for non-coding use cases.

What I've tried:

• The .agent.md file explicitly says "You are an analyst and issue manager" and "You are NOT an engineer. You cannot fix code."
• I've verified the agent is assigned correctly via custom_agent: "project" in both the API call and the UI
• I deleted all .github/instructions/*.instructions.md files to prevent instruction leakage (since excludeAgent only supports "code-review" and "coding-agent" — custom agent names are silently ignored)
• Even with instructions files removed, the platform's base system prompt overrides the custom agent identity

The core issue: The platform injects a system prompt identifying the agent as a "coding agent" that is stronger than whatever .agent.md provides. The custom agent prompt gets treated as supplementary context rather than the primary identity. For non-coding agents (project
management, SRE, product analysis), this makes custom_agent unusable.

[timrogers]

@Szer Thanks for sharing this feedback! I'm sorry to hear that you're having issues where Copilot won't assume the role that you want it to assume.

We are working on some changes to Copilot's system prompt at the moment to make it more flexible, and I believe it will address this issue and give you the Copilot behavior you're looking for. I'd expect us to ship this in the next 3-4 weeks. Watch this space!

[cl-em-fandango]

I am also experiencing this. It would be nice to be able to set unbreakable rules separately so that they are injected as early as possible in the prompt chain. I look forward to the release!

[IchordeDionysos]

Coming here from the Dependabot alert assign to Copilot dialog.

It would be immensely helpful to bulk assign Dependabot alerts and not having to manually assign them.

The top-notch case would be to bulk assign alerts where:

• a PR can't be created
• or a PR could be created but the tests are failing

[tielur]

Any updates on if/when a GitHub App token would be able to assign Copilot instead of a PAT?

[t-tokuharahidemitsu]

I can't choose AI model (ex claude) on copilot cloud agent of dependabot.
Because Ai model is fixing Auto mode.
Is this due to the preview version?
How can I choose AI model?

[johannesbrunner-wd]

Did not work
Assignment failed: Failed to assign Copilot

[justinchuby]

Agent created PRs are always under the name of copilot, which makes PR discovery and filtering quite a bit harder. It would be great to have a way to show the requester as the PR author, or have a good way to filter/display the human owner to facilitate PR reviews.

[timrogers]

👍 This is something we're working on improving. For now, you can find PRs that Copilot started for you by searching for PRs that are assigned to you.

[justinchuby]

Thank you for your response! I look forward to the improvements. I am aware of the assigned field but that can be noisy sometimes. (Particularly when I want to unassign myself when the PR is in review)

[NourEldinShobier]

Hi,

We have an N8N automation that creates GitHub issues and assigns Copilot cloud agent via the GraphQL createIssue mutation. This was working previously but suddenly stopped triggering agent sessions automatically two weeks ago.

Has anything changed recently in the API requirements for triggering cloud agent?

What we're doing:

We call the createIssue mutation with the agentAssignment input and the GraphQL-Features header:

mutation CreateIssue($repositoryId: ID!, $title: String!, $body: String, $assigneeIds: [ID!]) {
  createIssue(input: {
    repositoryId: $repositoryId,
    title: $title,
    body: $body,
    assigneeIds: $assigneeIds,
    agentAssignment: {
      targetRepositoryId: $repositoryId,
      baseRef: "main",
      customInstructions: "",
      customAgent: "",
      model: ""
    }
  }) {
    issue { id number title body url }
  }
}

With header: GraphQL-Features: issues_copilot_assignment_api_support,coding_agent_model_selection

What happens:

• The issue IS created successfully (no errors returned)
• Copilot gets assigned to the issue
• But the agent does NOT start — no 👀 reaction, no draft PR, no session logs

What we've verified:

• The bot ID is still correct (confirmed by querying the issue's assignees after manually assigning Copilot via the UI)
• PAT permissions didn't change: fine-grained token with Read+Write access to Actions, Contents, Issues, Pull Requests, and Read access to Metadata
• Manually assigning Copilot via the GitHub UI on the same repo triggers the agent normally

[timrogers]

Hi there! Sorry to hear you're having issues. Could you share the X-GitHub-Request-Id response header from the assignment request?

Could you also try without the agentAssignment parameter to see if that makes things better?

[weitzhandler]

Hi,

The agents are gone. The available options were Copilot, Claude and OpenAI, only Copilot is available now, the other two have been removed.

[rflulling]

Think, costs, and Politics. Seriously. No mater what excuses may be presented. If we could get access to the closed door meetings I doubt the answers to be anything else.