Building applications with GitHub Copilot agent mode: Review

Watching the little spinner GIF while the agent 'analyzed' the fake repo was the high point of the hands-on section. I pasted one command, `gh copilot --explain "./src/utils.js"`, and watched it write a summary. That was it. I learned nothing that a product demo video couldn't have shown me in two minutes.

This is not a course on *building* with agent mode. It's an announcement. It describes what the agent is supposed to do—analyze the whole project, fix things, write tests—but never puts you in a position where you have to guide it, correct it, or handle a failure. The hard part of using these agents isn't getting them to run a hello-world command. It's figuring out what to do when they hallucinate file paths, get stuck in a loop, or confidently break your codebase. This module pretends those problems don't exist.

It’s a guided tour of the happy path. You click through some multiple-choice questions confirming you read the marketing copy. I get it, it's a new feature. But calling this 'building applications' is a stretch. It's more like watching a self-driving car successfully navigate an empty parking lot. Impressive, I guess, but I wouldn't trust it in traffic. If you're looking to solve a real problem with this, you're on your own.