Astro

Realtime multiplayer, automation, and you! — Idan Gazit, GitHub

Aug 8, 2026 · 21:41

Idan Gazit of GitHub Next presents two prototypes for the future of software development: agentic workflows, which turn plain-English instructions into automated, guardrailed maintenance tasks, and ACE, a cloud-based platform for real-time multiplayer coding. He shows how an agentic workflow upgraded his site from Astro 5 to Astro 7, reading changelogs, fixing breaking changes, verifying the build, and opening exactly one pull request, with permissions, tools, networks, and safe outputs declared in YAML front matter rather than prompts, since prompts can be prompt-injected and are not real guardrails. Secrets stay outside the agent's jail, and agents may "do nothing" to avoid noise. ACE runs sessions in cloud microVMs, looks like Slack, and lets teams edit a shared plan document together before telling the AI to "make the document true." He closes with a study of about 100 developers over thousands of hours showing typing is only about 5% of the job, so AI must help with the other 95%.

Piloting agents in GitHub Copilot - Christopher Harrison, Microsoft

Jul 26, 2025 · 59:07

Christopher Harrison (Microsoft) demonstrates GitHub Copilot's agent capabilities for AI Engineers, arguing context is key to effective pair programming. He explains Copilot's modes—completion, chat, edit, local agent, and coding agent—and how Model Context Protocol (MCP) enables access to external tools like databases. Harrison shows how Copilot-instructions.md files provide project-specific guidance, and how coding agent runs within ephemeral GitHub Actions environments with strict security (no external access, only write to its own branch). He emphasizes that AI doesn't change DevOps fundamentals: tests still run locally and via PR workflows, and code review remains essential. The lab covers assigning issues to Copilot, configuring MCP servers, and using .instructions files for reusable patterns, with a repeat session at 3:30 PM.