Primary speaker:
Jessica Li, Developer, EASI, ITS
Additional speaker:
Andre Kalamandeen, Manager, Data, Architect and Integration, EASI, ITS
Description:
GitHub Copilot is no longer just an autocomplete tool. It can meaningfully speed up delivery across the entire Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) when used with the right workflow. This presentation is a practical, end-to-end guide to mastering GitHub Copilot for real engineering work, from first-time setup to high-leverage daily habits.
We’ll begin with a quick installation and configuration walkthrough. Then we’ll introduce GitHub Copilot’s Ask, Plan and Agent modes, and show how each mode fits different stages of the SDLC: Ask mode to ask questions, code explanations or searching the codebase without making changes, Plan mode for structured designs and step-by-step implementation strategies, and Agent mode for delegating multi-step tasks like refactors, migrations and test generation with iterative feedback.
From there, we’ll move through hands-on examples that map directly to common developer tasks: drafting and improving documentation, explaining unfamiliar codebases, reviewing code and generating unit/integration tests with meaningful coverage. Along the way, we’ll show how instruction files and rules encode team standards (style, architecture, testing, security) so GitHub Copilot produces consistent, review-ready code.
Attendees will leave with a repeatable playbook for using GitHub Copilot to accelerate delivery while maintaining code quality, consistency, and team standards across the full SDLC.
