Rongchai Wang
Jan 14, 2026 20:42
GitHub rolls out GPT-5 mini and GPT-4.1 fashions to Copilot CLI alongside 4 specialised brokers for code overview, planning, and automatic testing.
GitHub has shipped a considerable replace to Copilot CLI, including GPT-5 mini and GPT-4.1 fashions that will not depend in opposition to premium request limits for paid subscribers. The January 14 launch additionally introduces 4 specialised brokers designed to deal with discrete growth duties with out cluttering your fundamental dialog context.
The brand new brokers—Discover, Activity, Plan, and Code-review—every sort out particular workflows. Discover handles quick codebase evaluation for fast questions. Activity runs builds and checks, returning transient summaries on success however full output when issues break. Plan maps out implementation by analyzing dependencies. Code-review focuses on surfacing real points moderately than nitpicking model preferences.
What’s truly helpful right here: Copilot now delegates to those brokers routinely when it detects an applicable process, and might run a number of brokers in parallel. Mixed with the Agent Expertise function GitHub launched in December, builders can chain agentic workflows immediately from their terminal.
Set up Will get Easier
GitHub has added bundle supervisor help throughout platforms. Home windows customers can run winget set up GitHub.Copilot, whereas macOS and Linux customers have Homebrew (brew set up copilot-cli) or a curl script choice. Package deal supervisor installations deal with computerized updates—no extra guide model bumps.
The CLI now comes pre-installed in GitHub Codespaces and works as a Dev Container Characteristic for standardized dev environments.
Context Administration Enhancements
Token administration will get smarter with auto-compaction that kicks in at 95% of the restrict, routinely compressing dialog historical past. The brand new /context command exhibits precisely the place your tokens are going, whereas /compact permits you to manually compress when wanted.
Session continuity improves too—the --resume flag now permits you to tab by way of each native classes and distant Copilot coding agent classes.
Pipeline Integration
New flags goal CI/CD use instances. --silent suppresses logs for clear parseable output. --share-gist exports classes to shareable gists. Software allowlisting and denylisting through --available-tools and --excluded-tools give granular management over what Copilot can entry in automated environments.
A brand new web_fetch instrument retrieves URL content material as markdown, with entry managed by way of config file patterns that additionally apply to shell instructions like curl and wget.
The diff viewer now contains intra-line syntax highlighting and integrates with Git’s configured pager. Agent-run instructions now not pollute your bash historical past—a small quality-of-life repair that issues throughout lengthy debugging classes.
Replace through your bundle supervisor or run npm set up -g @github/copilot@newest. The general public repository at github.com/github/copilot-cli hosts ongoing dialogue.
Picture supply: Shutterstock
