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Use Case 4: "I have too many tasks"

Scenario: You have 5 tickets in your sprint: bug fixes, new features, tech debt. You can't do them all synchronously.

Time: ~30 minutes

Copilot Features: Coding Agent, Mission Control, Custom Agents

Your Challenge: Delegate work to Coding Agent while you focus on high-value tasks.

Step 1: Use Custom Agents for Specialized Work​

Scenario: You need BDD tests for the cart feature.

  1. Go to your GitHub repository
  2. Click Agents Panel (top right icon next to Copilot...)
  3. Select the main branch for working (should be preselected)
  4. Choose BDD Specialist agent
  5. Prompt: 
    Add comprehensive BDD tests for the Cart page feature
  6. Click the Start Task button
  7. Agent starts working - you can close the tab and do other work

If interested, you can look at .github/agents/bdd-specialist.agent.md to see how this custom agent is defined. You can create your own custom agents for your team as well!

Step 2: Assign Issues to Coding Agent​

  1. In your IDE, open .github/prompts/demo-cart-page.prompt.md
  2. The GitHub MCP server should already be started (from Use Case 3). If not, start it now by hitting Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + P and selecting MCP: List Servers, selecting github-remote, and clicking Start Server.
  3. In the Copilot Chat panel, clear your history, ensure you are in agent mode and select a base model like GPT-5 mini. Have Copilot open an issue for you. Prompt: 
    Create a GitHub issue with the title "Implement Recommendations Feature" using the contents in the demo-cart-page.prompt.md file as the body.
  4. Click Allow to let Copilot execute the create issue command. It should return with a new issue URL.
  5. Have Copilot assign the issue to the Coding Agent. Prompt: 
    Assign this issue to the Copilot coding agent.
    Note an alternative approach is do this directly in GitHub by manually creating the issue and then assigning it to Copilot.
  6. Open the issue in GitHub and you should see the 👀 indicator showing that Copilot saw the issue. It should also have a link to a work in progress pull request shortly after.

Step 3: Monitor from Mission Control​

  1. Navigate to https://github.com/copilot/agents
  2. See all your active agent sessions (in this case you should have the BDD Specialist session we started first and the cart feature coding session we started second)
  3. Click on the BDD session that should be in progress:
    • Note you can view real-time progress and see commands executed
    • Also see the pull request contents
  4. Steer mid-session by prompting Copilot: 
    While you're at it, add error handling for network failures

Step 4: Use API Specialist for Backend Work​

  1. Go back to your repository and open the agents panel like we did for the BDD Specialist. This time select API Specialist
  2. Prompt with the following and click to Start Task: 
    Create CRUD endpoints for user profiles: 
    GET /api/profiles/:id
    POST /api/profiles
    PUT /api/profiles/:id
    DELETE /api/profiles/:id
  3. Copilot Coding Agent will spin up another environment and implement the endpoint with proper error handling, validation, and Swagger docs

What You Learned​

✅ Custom Agents - Specialized tools for specific domains
✅ Mission Control - Manage multiple agents like a project manager
✅ Async Workflows - Delegate and move on, check back later
✅ Mid-Session Steering - Guide agents as they work

Time Investment: 30 minutes setup, agents work asynchronously
Value: 3-5 tickets completed while you focus on architecture/design

Next Steps​

Continue to Code Review to learn how to speed up code reviews with Copilot.