Agents page: Set the base branch for GitHub Copilot coding agent tasks

With GitHub Copilot coding agent, you can delegate tasks to Copilot that it will work on in the background while you focus on something else.

When delegating a task to Copilot from the Agents page, you can now pick a base branch.

Instead of starting from the repository’s default branch, Copilot will create a new branch based on the selected branch and push its changes to a pull request targeting that branch. This option can be useful if:

• You want Copilot to make changes to code you’re actively working on in a feature branch (e.g., your own pull request).
• You’re using a branching model for your repository where work doesn’t always start from the default branch.

Learn more about Copilot coding agent

Copilot coding agent is available in public preview for all users with Copilot Pro or Copilot Pro+, as well as Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise users where an administrator has enabled the relevant policy.

The Agents page isn’t the only place where you can delegate tasks to Copilot. Copilot coding agent is also integrated into Visual Studio Code, GitHub Mobile, the GitHub CLI, and the GitHub MCP Server. To find out more about Copilot coding agent, head to our documentation.