GitHub has extended Copilot coding agent to support execution within private infrastructure by leveraging self-hosted GitHub Actions runners controlled through Actions Runner Controller (ARC). This capability allows teams to grant the agent access to proprietary resources, such as internal package repositories, that exist behind corporate firewalls rather than on public networks.
Copilot coding agent functions as an asynchronous, autonomous background worker that accepts task assignments. When given a directive, it generates a draft pull request, executes modifications autonomously, and then notifies developers for code review. The agent operates within its own temporary development environment, built on GitHub Actions infrastructure, where it can execute the project's compilation steps, run test suites, and perform additional build operations.
ARC scale sets are now recognized as valid runs-on: targets within the copilot-setup-steps.yml configuration file, allowing customization of the agent's development environment. Implementation requires two primary steps:
- Set up ARC and establish a scale set configuration.
- Modify the
runs-on:parameter in copilot-setup-steps.yml to reference the scale set name.
The configuration syntax appears as follows:
jobs:
copilot-setup-steps:
runs-on: arc-scale-set-name
Additional technical details and setup instructions are available in GitHub's documentation on customizing the development environment for GitHub Copilot coding agent.