How to get started with GitHub Copilot?

October 16, 2025

GitHub Copilot can speed up development by up to 50% in many teams.

You may have heard of it, but haven't tried it yet. In this article, we'll go over the setup and the first steps to get started.

But Copilot is certainly not just for developers; it can also help analysts, testers, or non-IT people with simple scripts and prototypes - often without prior programming experience.

But it's still an assistant, not an autopilot. Start small and gradually discover what it can do in your context.

What is it and what to expect from it?

GitHub Copilot is an AI assistant for programming. It significantly speeds up writing code. It is powered by advanced artificial intelligence models, primarily from OpenAI and Anthropic.

How does it work? Copilot reads the context of your project: text, code already written, file names and comments, and suggests what to do next: additional lines, entire functions and tests. You control it in a common language, like "create a function to add two numbers". The suggestion appears straight away in the editor.

What can he do?

Code completion: It predicts and offers a continuation of the code you write.
Generation from comments: Creates code based on a textual description.
Explaining the code: It can help you understand complex or unfamiliar sections of code.
Refactoring: Suggests improvements for code structure and readability.
Creating tests: It generates unit and integration tests for your code.
Copilot panel (central interface): the place where you interact with Copilot and choose the mode of work - chat (only suggests), editor (changes the current file) or agent (can interfere across the project).
- Copilot Chat: interactive window for AI conversation. Used for troubleshooting or code queries. It does not make automatic changes directly to the code.
- Copilot Edit (Inline editor): makes edits only to the currently open file. Less autonomous than an agent; typically suggests a solution (diff) and you confirm the change.
- Copilot Agent: can handle complex tasks across files (e.g. fix all errors in a file), including the use of tools such as commands.

💡 Tip: Start in Chat to understand the problem, use Edit for quick local changes, and then use Agent for broader interventions across the repository.

Code

function helloWorld() {

Code

def factorial(n):
    # Copilot nabídne: if n == 0: return 1
    # Copilot nabídne: else: return n * factorial(n-1)

Code

# Copilot Instructions
## Style & Conventions
- Use … naming
- Every new function: docstring + example
## Tech Stack
- Language/Framework: …
## Quality
- Tests: unit + coverage ≥ …
## Prompts
- When asked to refactor, keep public API stable and add tests.

Code

# Vytvor zakladni Flask aplikaci
from flask import Flask
app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route('/')
def hello_world():
    return 'Hello, World!'

Code

function fetchData(url) {
    // Po napsani "return fetch(url).t" Copilot navrhne "hen(res => res.j.json());"
    return fetch(url).then(res => res.json());

Code

Uživatel: "Napis mi funkci v Pythonu, ktera nacte data z JSON souboru a vrati je jako slovnik. Pridej i osetreni chyb."
Copilot: ```python
import json
def load_json_data(filepath):
    try:
        with open(filepath, 'r', encoding='utf-8') as f:
            data = json.load(f)
        return data
    except FileNotFoundError:
        print(f"Chyba: Soubor '{filepath}' nebyl nalezen.")
    except json.JSONDecodeError:
        print(f"Chyba: Soubor '{filepath}' neni platny JSON format.")
 except Exception as e:
        print(f"Nastala neočekávaná chyba při čtení souboru '{filepath}': {e}")

    return None

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How to get started with GitHub Copilot?

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What is it and what to expect from it?

Installation and first steps

Basic work with Copilot

Code generation and completion

Best Practices

Summary

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