Starting Tuesday, February 18, 2025, we are updating our retention policy so that the last_activity_at value of the user management API will only be stored by GitHub for 90 days. Previously, the contents of this field were retained indefinitely.

See what’s changing

• Old Policy: Unlimited retention of the last_activity_at value.
• New Policy: A rolling 90-day retention period. If your data’s last_activity_at exceeds 90 days, its value will be set to nil.

Expected impact

Only users with no new activity within a 90-day window will have their last_activity_at value replaced by nil. In practice this means that on the changeover date, users whose last activity with Copilot took place prior to November 20, 2024 will have the value for their last_activity_at replaced on a rolling-forward basis.

Detail

Clarifying the behavior of last_activity_at in the context of the current changes:

1. Assigning a Seat: When you assign a seat to a user, the last_activity value for that seat will be nil until the user interacts with it for the first time. This is true even if the user had previous activity from a different seat assignment in another organization.

2. Removing a Seat: When you remove a seat from a user, the last_activity data for that user is set to nil in the revoking org. Their data is unaffected for other admins who have granted that user a seat in other orgs, when pulled for those orgs.

3. Reassigning a User to Seat: If you remove a seat from a user and later assign a new seat to the same user, the last_activity value for the new seat will again be nil until the user’s next interaction, regardless of whether the seat was previously assigned to them.

4. Deleting a User: If you delete a user, all associated last_activity data for that user is immediately deleted.

5. Determining Dormancy: When retrieving activity data for a seat, you can use the created_at and last_activity values to determine dormancy. For example, if created_at is more than 30 days ago and last_activity is either more than 30 days ago or nil, the seat may considered dormant.

6. Activity Data for Assigned Seats: When retrieving last_activity data for assigned seats, you will receive a nil value if the assignee’s most recent activity record is older than 90 days.

Note: Behavior of the data will remain consistent with the Activity Report, available in Admin UI.

Why we’re making this change

Our external data surfaces must be quality first. Retaining data of this volume for multi-year retention periods increases storage and backup overhead significantly, as well as the cost and complexity of quality checks. A time-bound retention policy allows us to maintain efficiency while still offering relevant, up-to-date information. This will allow us to further improve the resilience of the data that is returned by the endpoint, while limiting the impact only to very old records.

Next steps

You don’t need to take any action if you rely on the last_activity_at field for current activity records.

However, if you have workflows or reports that depend on usage dates for active seats that have been dormant for 90 or more days, please be aware that these values will become nil for records older than 90 days, for dates on or before November 20, 2024, as of Tuesday, February 18, 2025. While exceptionally rare, we encourage you to store API responses for cases where this will become problematic.

This week’s Copilot Workspace updates are focused on improvements to navigation and file management. As ever, drop your feedback into this discussion.

Simpler file tree navigation

When folders don’t have any direct file children but only have other folders as children, we now combine those into one folder to reduce the amount of nesting in the file tree.

In addition, when you open the file tree and have generated files, we now show Changed files as the default viewing mode.

Delete a file from the actions menu

By clicking on the ellipses in a file, you’re now able to delete a file directly from the actions menu of Copilot Workspace.

Opening files now opens them in an ephemeral tab

When you click a file in the tree, a new ephemeral tab is opened. When you double-click a file in the tree, it opens as a new regular tab. This aligns with the experience of most other IDEs and keeps your open tab list to just the ones you need.

Forwarded ports are easier to access

Now, when a command action uses port forwarding, a globe icon is added next to the command row, allowing you to view a live preview of the running port.

Improved screen layout in pull requests for smaller devices

Now, when working on smaller screens, the commit panel and suggestions pane will close as necessary, to better fit within your screen.

We want to hear from you

Please drop any and all feedback in our GitHub Discussion. We appreciate any and all feedback you have!

Happy new year! We’ve got fresh Copilot Workspace updates for you this week, including the ability to add a new file directly to the file tree and reduced latency in the terminal.

Adding new files from file tree

You can now add a new file directly to the file tree, rather than having to modify the plan.

Error toggling

We’ve enabled an option to toggle errors on and off within your editor. This will allow you to hide errors when you’re not actively working on them.

Improved codespace creation

Now when you create a codespace, your codespace will be created in the region closest to you. This will improve the latency of your connection, providing a smoother experience while editing and using the terminal.

Accessibility improvements

Screen readers will now announce when suggestions are applied.

Bug fixes

Fixed a design regression where there was no border between the editor and the file.

We want to hear your feedback

Please drop your feedback in our GitHub Discussion. We appreciate any and all feedback you have!

We are excited to announce that all paying Copilot customers can now use the technical preview of GitHub Copilot Workspace.

Copilot Workspace is a Copilot-native development environment designed to help you with everyday tasks, from idea to merge.

Starting from a GitHub Issue or natural language task, you can work with Copilot Workspace to iterate on solving your problem. Together, you can:

• Brainstorm your ideas: Ask Copilot questions about how your codebase currently works, and explore ideas for how to solve your task.
• Plan your changes: Leverage Copilot Workspace to generate a comprehensive plan for your code change, surfacing relevant code and describing the changes necessary in each file to achieve your goal.
• Implement and validate: Let Copilot Workspace propose code changes that you can iterate on and refine in natural language or code. You can even build, run, and test the code directly within Copilot Workspace with a fully functional compute environment provided by GitHub Codespaces before creating a pull request.

Everything that GitHub Copilot Workspace proposes – from the plan to the code – is fully editable, allowing you to rapidly iterate until you’re confident in the change.

To find out more, check out the blog that first launched Copilot Workspace to the world.

Getting Started

Sign up for the technical preview by logging into Copilot Workspace. Please note that Enterprise Managed Users are not eligible for the technical preview.

Once you have access, check out the user manual, or these 5 helpful tips and tricks for getting the most out of Copilot Workspace.

Organization administrators can enable members to use Copilot Workspace with repositories owned by their organization by approving the Copilot Workspace OAuth app for the organization. OAuth app restrictions are enabled by default when new organizations are created, so unless you’ve changed this setting, members of your organization will not have access to Copilot Workspace on organization-owned repositories by default. To enable Copilot Workspace for your organization’s repositories:

• Enable Copilot Extensions
• Opt-in to Copilot feature previews
• Approve the GitHub Copilot Workspace OAuth application for any organizations where you want developer access

You can share any questions, concerns, or ideas in this discussion post. We can’t wait to see what you build!

Welcome to another week of Copilot Workspace updates! We have a bunch this week, so let’s jump right in! 🎉

Copilot Workspace

Handling large files

Workspace will now inform you when a file is too large to be displayed, and link you to view the file in the repo editor.

Copying the branch name

Now when selecting a branch, you’ll be able to copy the branch name to your clipboard. You’ll will see a check mark after successfully copying the branch name.

Improvements to the diff editor

• The scrolling experience has been improved, allowing you to scroll through all your files at once instead of each file individually.
• We’ve enabled collapsing regions outside the diff, and are showing 3 lines of context padding the diff.
• We’ve enabled word wrapping within the editor.

Bug fixes

• Empty files now display correctly
• Fixed a bug during plan creation that was causing Copilot Workspace to crash
• No longer does renaming the spec question include a scroll bar
• Fixed an issue where renamed files did not update all references across the plan, tabs, and editor. Now when you rename a file you will see that name change reflected everywhere.

Copilot Workspace for PRs

New file path auto-populating

Adding new files will auto-populate the path, making it easier to add new files to your repository.

Individual file resets

You can now reset individual files, rather than having to reset the state of all changes.

Hiding trailing whitespace

We’ve enabled an option for you to hide whitespace when viewing a diff.

Add indication when suggestion cannot be applied

We now alert you when a suggestion can’t be applied.

Accessibility improvements

Accessibility continues to be core to the GitHub experience. Over the upcoming changelogs we’ll be highlighting improvements to our accessibility experience.

• User operating system specific hints on keyboard shortcuts are enabled
• A missing checkbox label on commit dialog has been added
• Screen reader feedback on suggestions are now applied

Bug fixes

• Copilot Workspace now informs users if a file is too large to be viewed
• Changing files is enabled when focusing on a suggestion
• Suggestions that would be applied to files you have removed are now deleted

Providing Feedback

Please give feedback in our GitHub Discussion. We appreciate any and all feedback you have!

OpenAI’s brand new o1 model is now available in Copilot Chat for Copilot Pro, Business and Enterprise subscribers.

The new o1 model replaces o1-preview, and offers even better performance in complex tasks.

To try it, just pick o1 (Preview) from the model picker in Visual Studio Code or in the full-screen, immersive Copilot Chat experience at github.com/copilot.

Access to the o1 model is currently in public preview, so if you’re a Copilot Business or Copilot Enterprise subscriber, an administrator must enable access to the o1 family of models before o1 shows up in the model picker.

Support for o1 is coming soon to Visual Studio, and we’re working to bring the model picker to the JetBrains IDEs.

OpenAI o1 is also available in GitHub Models – to learn more, check out the changelog.