I Spent 24 Hours with GitHub Copilot Workspaces

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  "title": "I Spent 24 Hours with GitHub Copilot Workspaces",
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{
  "author": "Dan Shipper",
  "date": "2026-01-28T06:03:07.686Z",
  "description": "I spent 24 hours with AI coding assistant Github Copilot Workspace",
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  "title": "The Next Big Programming Language Is English",
  "url": "https://every.to/chain-of-thought/i-spent-24-hours-with-github-copilot-workspaces"
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{
  "url": "https://every.to/chain-of-thought/i-spent-24-hours-with-github-copilot-workspaces",
  "title": "The Next Big Programming Language Is English",
  "description": "I spent 24 hours with AI coding assistant Github Copilot WorkspaceMay 3, 2024Updated Jan 28, 2026Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up to get it in your inbox.GitHub Copilot is like autocomplete for...",
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  "image": "https://d24ovhgu8s7341.cloudfront.net/uploads/post/social_media_image/3089/full_page_cover_Screenshot_2024-05-06_at_1.47.11_PM.png",
  "content": "<div><p>I spent 24 hours with AI coding assistant Github Copilot Workspace</p><div><p><span>May 3, 2024</span><span>Updated Jan 28, 2026</span></p><div><p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https://every.to/chain-of-thought/i-spent-24-hours-with-github-copilot-workspaces#comments\"><img src=\"https://every.to/icons/comment.svg\" alt=\"Comments\" /></a></p></div></div></div><div><p><em>Was this newsletter forwarded to you? </em><a href=\"https://every.to/account\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Sign up</em></a><em> to get it in your inbox.</em></p><hr /><p>GitHub Copilot is like autocomplete for programmers.</p><p>As you type, it guesses what you’re trying to accomplish and suggests the block of code it <em>thinks</em> you’re going to write. If it’s right—and very often it is—you press Tab and it’ll fill in the rest for you. Launched in 2021, a year or so before ChatGPT’s arrival, Copilot was the first breakthrough generative AI use case for programming that really took off.</p><p>If GitHub Copilot is like autocomplete, <a href=\"https://github.blog/2024-04-29-github-copilot-workspace/\" target=\"_blank\">GitHub Copilot Workspaces</a>—currently in limited technical preview—is like an extremely capable <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair_programming#:~:text=Pair%20programming%20is%20a%20software,two%20programmers%20switch%20roles%20frequently.\" target=\"_blank\">pair programmer</a> who never asks for coffee breaks or RSUs.</p><p>It’s a tool that lets you code in plain English from start to finish without leaving your browser. If you give it a task to complete, Copilot Workspaces will read your existing codebase, construct a step-by-step plan to build it, and then—once you give the green light—it’ll implement the code while you watch.</p><p>Put another way, it’s an agent. It’s similar to Devin, the AI agent for programming whose <a href=\"https://www.cognition-labs.com/introducing-devin\" target=\"_blank\">launch announcement</a> went viral a few months ago, and which was reportedly seeking a <a href=\"https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/a-peter-thiel-backed-ai-startup-cognition-labs-seeks-2-billion-valuation-998fa39d\" target=\"_blank\">$2 billion valuation</a> in a new fundraising effort. I haven’t gotten access to that yet (shakes fist in Devin’s general direction!), but I do have access to Copilot Workspaces. </p><p>Over the past 24 hours, I’ve put Copilot Workspaces through some of its paces. I tried to have it build a large, complex feature on its own, but I also asked it to do smaller, better-defined tasks. My goal was to see what I could ask of it, what kinds of tasks it could handle, and when I might choose to use this instead of ChatGPT.</p><p>The short answer is: This kind of product is the future of programming. The long answer is below.</p><h2 id=\"how-copilot-workspaces-works\">How Copilot Workspaces works</h2></div>",
  "author": "Dan Shipper",
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  "published": "2026-01-28",
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