Copilot runs in several places. They share your seat and work well together. Use this page to point people at the right one for the job in front of them.
Start from the problem
| I want to… | Use | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Write or change code with my hands on the keyboard | Copilot in VS Code or your IDE | Inline suggestions and chat right where you edit |
| Run several tasks at once, each on its own branch | Copilot app | Parallel sessions in separate working trees. See Run work in parallel |
| Take an issue all the way to a reviewed pull request | Copilot app | Plan mode, diff review and PR creation in one place |
| Work in a terminal or script an agent | Copilot CLI | Agent in your shell, easy to use over SSH or in scripts |
| Hand off a task and get a pull request back later | Copilot cloud agent | Works on GitHub in the background, assigned from an issue |
| Run the same prompt every morning or on an event | Automations in the Copilot app | Scheduled or on-demand runs with a fixed tool set |
| Coordinate several agents on a larger job | Child sessions with /spawn, /fleet or /orchestrate, or dynamic workflows where available |
One session splits work, starts the others and tracks the results. See splitting work |
| Analyze a spreadsheet or draft a deck without a repository | Copilot app chat with an Office canvas | No branch needed, files stay on your machine |
| Ask a question about my organization’s code | Copilot app or Copilot Chat on GitHub.com | Search across repositories you can read |
More than writing code
Most of an engineer’s week goes to work around the code, and the app takes that on too. Some of it never touches a repository: start a chat, attach a file or connect a source, and ask. Engineer links come first in each row. The other roles use the same patterns.
| I want to… | What the app does | See it on |
|---|---|---|
| Investigate a bug or follow up on an incident | Reproduces the problem, traces the likely cause and proposes a fix or a timeline | Engineer, Engineer incident |
| Review a teammate’s pull request | Reads the diff alongside you and drafts comments you choose to post | Engineer |
| Research a decision or write a design doc | Runs /research for a cited report, then drafts a doc grounded in your code |
Engineer research, Engineer design doc, PM, Sales |
| Write docs, blog posts or release notes | Drafts from the real code and tests samples before you publish | Engineer, DevRel, PM |
| Triage issues or plan an epic | Groups items into themes, dedupes and breaks large work into issues | Engineer triage, Engineer planning, PM |
| Write the status update or run a job on a schedule | Drafts from merged work, and automations run the same prompt every week | Engineer status, Engineer briefing, Manager |
| Build a deck or an Office file | Builds and edits Word, Excel and PowerPoint files in canvases | Engineer demo deck, Business, Sales |
| Analyze data | Answers questions over logs, benchmarks or a CSV and charts the result | Engineer, PM, Business |
The Word, Excel and PowerPoint canvases may not be on for every account yet. If they are not in the Canvas view under Customize, ask the agent to write the file with a script and open it in Office.
Rules of thumb
- Hands on, one task: your editor.
- Hands off, many tasks: the app.
- Repeats on a schedule: an automation.
- Not code at all: the app, in a chat with an Office canvas or a connector.
- Should finish while you are away: a cloud sandbox or the cloud agent.
They work together
A typical day mixes them. You might start a cloud agent task from an issue, review and finish the resulting pull request in the app, then fix a last edge case in your editor. The work lives on GitHub branches, so you can move between surfaces without copying anything.
Share this page
Link it in your launch email and FAQ. When someone asks “should I use the app for this?”, send them the table.