GitHub Copilot in Microsoft Teams: Cloud Agent Setup

Quick answer

GitHub’s collaborative Copilot cloud-agent sessions in Microsoft Teams entered public preview on August 21, 2026. A user on a paid Copilot plan can mention @GitHub in a channel, thread, or direct message to investigate, plan, create issues, or start code changes in a cloud sandbox. For organization users, owners may need to enable cloud agent and cloud sandboxes, and the Teams client currently requires Microsoft Public Developer Preview.

Only users with repository write access can trigger changes. Other eligible conversation participants can contribute context and steer. The whole thread is captured as context and can be stored in generated artifacts, so choose the conversation boundary before mentioning the app.

Prerequisites

• a paid GitHub Copilot plan assigned to the user;
• a Microsoft Teams account with Public Developer Preview enabled where required;
• Copilot cloud agent and cloud sandbox policies enabled for the organization or enterprise;
• the approved GitHub app for Teams installed once in the team;
• each user connected to their own GitHub identity;
• repository write permission for users who may trigger code changes;
• reviewed AI-credit and cloud-sandbox budgets for the billed owner.

Verify actual access. Published prerequisites do not guarantee that a staged public preview is present in every tenant or account.

Install and configure

1. Add the GitHub app to the intended team and review its Teams permissions.
2. Connect an individual GitHub account through the app.
3. In a direct message or low-risk pilot channel, mention @GitHub help to confirm the available command surface.
4. Set a channel default repository only after validating who can see and change that setting.
5. Start a task with an explicit repository, existing base branch, acceptance criteria, no-go actions, and review owner.
6. Follow progress in Teams, then review the actual agent session and pull request in GitHub.

Public and private channels can have a default repository; direct messages do not. If a channel has no default, the first repository used can become its default. When a prompt omits repository or branch, Copilot can use that channel default and the repository’s default branch. Treat these defaults as shared configuration, not user preferences.

Conversation and identity boundaries

Copilot captures the full thread, not only the latest message. Start a new thread or direct message when older discussion is irrelevant, confidential, ambiguous, or contains unapproved instructions. Tell participants that their messages may shape code and appear in artifacts.

In a shared context, artifacts such as pull requests use the app identity. GitHub documents an extra approval for unattributed Copilot pull requests when a ruleset already requires approval. Preserve human review, CODEOWNERS, required checks, and environment protection. Conversation consensus is not merge authority.

Billing has two control planes

Teams cloud-agent sessions consume AI credits. For organizations, usage-based billing budgets govern cloud-agent AI credits. Cloud sandbox usage is billed separately and requires a product-level or SKU-level budget; it is not part of the bundled AI-credits budget type.

Record the billing owner, included pool, overage status, dollar budgets, stop-usage settings, alerts, sandbox SKU, Actions minutes, and incident owner. A budget created after usage begins may not retroactively account for earlier metered use.

Safe pilot

Choose one repository with reversible changes and no production credentials. Test an unauthorized participant, wrong default repository, sensitive thread, ambiguous branch, duplicate request, sandbox budget exhaustion, failed checks, workflow modification, stop request, and PR rollback. Verify that outside collaborators and guests cannot start or steer where GitHub says they are excluded.

Compare Teams and Slack in the surface selection guide. Use the Slack setup guide for Slack Code behavior and the readiness tool before a broader rollout.

Official sources

• Teams public-preview announcement
• Integrating Copilot cloud agent with Teams
• Cloud sandbox billing
• Copilot usage-based billing

Source check: August 23, 2026. Recheck preview availability, Teams prerequisites, policies, attribution, and both budget systems before rollout.